It seems to be a stunt by the US for getting attention for going across the world volunteeering, rather than just helping people at home in the US. Like the media attention-grabber when Madonna went to Africa to adopt kids instead of just adopting kids from the US.
I know someone who wants to join the Peace Corps, likely for genuinely noble reasons. They said they could do things like have the opportunity to build infrastructure in places that need it.
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as mentioned, the domestic analog is Americorps.
they will fund a shitty, entry level position at a non profit and award an offset to student loans in addition to the stipend. so, all in, if you stack up in some kind of dormitory communal housing and share food, you can maybe do OK for someone just starting out trying to use their education for good.
practically speaking, its experience for the college grad to live and work at a non profit in an underserved community, to learn the lingo of “building capacity” which is where they learn the State hates funding do gooder positions in perpetuity, so they will fund a position at a shit rate for a year or so and then the person and/or position has to change. and they prefer it when the non profit leverages existing funds from a philanthropist (rich person).
it is an EXTREMELY depressing system to critically examine, where starry-eyed and educated young people who care about stuff
- get burnt the fuck out and leave.
- learn to become non-profit careerists and become more effective cogs in the machine that feeds itself by never solving the problem.
i have compassion for people that try these things out, and in a sad mimicry of all developmental aid under neoliberalism, the aid worker ends up being more personally enriched (with experience, not money in this case) than the community needing assistance. its very eye opening.
and i am speaking from the most good faith usage, where most of the people in the equation are trying to do something helpful given the tools available.
I agree with all this. Anyone I’ve known that did peace corps was well-meaning. You will see it a lot on the resumes/bios of nonprofit careerists.
the peace corps is where america’s military budget would go if America was the country it said it was
I feel I should encourage them to do mutual aid instead, but I’m disabled and can’t volunteer for things so I dont have experience on how to find and point people to mutual aid groups.
as someone who has no idea either, i think it’s probably unique to the context (people and place). sometimes it takes seeing the machine from the inside to understand its role. of course that’s not guaranteed to reveal anything either, if they aren’t looking, but if they go to a place with open eyes and try to listen to and help people they are likely to meet people trying to do the same with alternative methods built on critical perspectives.
i haven’t read all of this, but it has been making its way around the circuit: https://cdn.bookey.app/files/pdf/book/en/the-revolution-will-not-be-funded.pdf
personally, i can’t even imagine trying to do something 100% federally funded and administered over the next 2 years. this administration whiplashes the shit out of everything, and i’d rather not be overseas and find out whatever situation i get dumped into has rug pulled funding to the local community for the third time in a year. at least in the states, one speaks the language and can probably make their way to a bus station to get back to wherever if the whole thing goes teats up.
if finding a mutual aid org seems insurmountable, you could steer them into americorps because i legit think americorps service has more radicalizing potential since it’s just in the US and not beholden to the embassy to be your lifeline in case of a crisis. and, for sure, the geography of uneven development americorp exposes can be a total mind job for americans who think america hasn’t been insanely hollowed out.
i spent some years working in deep interior places where americorps has standing missions. designated federal “promise zones” under obama. deeply radicalizing and opened my eyes to an america my family still cannot perceive no matter how much i try to articulate it.
even as little as these programs provide the workers, that’s some pretty advanced mutual aid if they’re needing to get food and shelter out of it
I mean mutual aid doesn’t pay great either so effectively the peace corps or americorps would be doing mutual aid (i.e. teaching english as a second language and providing reading and literacy assistance for adults, idk, I consider that significant aid) for minimum wage for a "non"profit
the difference really being that one pays some and at least looks good on a resume and the other, idk how mutual mutual aid is necessarily and at least minimum wage is pay
rather than just helping people at home in the US
There’s also Americorps domestically. If I remember right, they mostly staff scab teachers in poorer areas of the country.
