Peace Corps volunteers settle at UCLA
Bruins credit career goals, life changes to experiences in
developing nations
By Jennifer K. Morita
Former volunteers say the Peace Corps changed their lives.
"I changed from an English degree to the public health field and
it was definitely because of the health problems I saw when I was
volunteering in Yemen," said Ann McMunn, a graduate student in the
School of Public Health.
"I changed my whole career around because of the Peace Corps,"
she said.
Since 1961 some 140,000 Peace Corps volunteers have been serving
in developing nations combining educational and occupation skills
with volunteer service.
Volunteering for the Peace Corps includes benefits other than
experience. Volunteers who have a Perkins Student Loan on or after
July 1, 1987, will have 15 percent of their loan cancelled each
year of service.
Ranked as having the 14th highest number of Peace Corps
volunteers, UCLA boasts 30 alumni who were trained in 1994 and 150
volunteers sent overseas since 1988.
"UCLA is a great pool to choose from because of the huge amount
of people," said Peace Corps recruiter Susan Ackerman. "UCLA people
make great volunteers. They’re interested in the third world
concept from the people’s perspective, the human side."
UCLA volunteers like McMunn and Elizabeth Ciemins saw the human
side in the poverty and disease of the people they were sent to
help.
"You see a lot of deformities and a lot of infant mortality,"
said McMunn, who served as an English teacher in the Middle Eastern
country Yemen."You also see maternal death due to childbirth. Women
in Yemen average 15 pregnancies in a lifetime so there are a lot of
women dying because obviously they don’t have the kind of
facilities we do."
Being witness to the lives of people in developing nations
changes volunteers’ lives, Peace Corps officials said.
Ciemins volunteered at a dispensary in Niger, West Africa, where
she helped traditional birth attendants, started a health education
program and distributed vitamin A tablets and information.
"Dealing with malnutrition, I saw kids die on a weekly basis,"
said Ciemins, a graduate alumna in African studies and public
health. "Then I come back here and see our supermarkets with tons
of food and people throwing things away.
"It made me appreciate what I have," she said.
"Volunteers come back and perceive the world totally
differently," said Ackerman, who is also a graduate student of the
School of Public Health and a former Peace Corps volunteer.
Helping people who are unable to help themselves, teaching
people about the United States are two Peace Corps goals.
"The third goal is to bring some of what you learn there back
here," said Ciemins. "I think I gained more from it than I
gave."
Four years after she finished her service, Ciemins returned to
Niger, this time for a visit. When she arrived in the village she
discovered that a man she’d hired to take care of her house was
still working for the current volunteer.
"He thanked me profusely," Ciemins said. "Ever since I’d hired
him his family had seen no hunger. I went there to teach a village
about nutrition and while I was there a family ended up prospering
because I had given one person a job.
"Being there does have an affect," she said.
Volunteers find serving difficult because their efforts to
establish programs aren’t always successful. Ciemins attempted to
teach weaning procedures for women to use with their children,
something Peace Corps volunteers had been trying to do for
years.
"The women never did it," said Ciemins. "They never had and they
would never change so it was pretty frustrating in that way."
The skills volunteers bring back also prove valuable, said UCLA
Associate Professor Don Morisky.
"The Peace Corps provides you with a wealth of experience that
you would never be able to obtain in other assignments," said
Morisky, who served in the Philippines in 1968. "The level of
responsibility is extremely important in terms of being able to
utilize skills from undergraduate training programs.
"It was an excellent experience," Morisky said.
Learning to deal with different cultures is a skill Ciemins said
she gained during her service and a skill she brought back with her
and uses today as a research assistant in the sexually transmitted
diseases department of Los Angeles County’s department of health
services.
"Living here in Los Angeles where there are so many different
cultures, what I learned during my service in the Peace Corps helps
me deal with those different cultures, especially in the public
health field," said Ciemins.
"It’s definitely the best thing I’ve ever done," she said.