Letters

Achievements

Of The

Peace Corps

I would like to call your attention to a paragraph under the article “About Samoa With Sympathy” (PIM June, p. 51), The sub-headline at the top of the column reads “Peace Corps failings” and the article reads as follows: “I asked him about education. (Former Prime Minister Fiame Mata’afa). He was not happy about the contribution of Peace Corps Volunteers, too many of whom were unqualified for the positions they occupied. It would be better to stick to New Zealand for the source of teachers Western Samoa needed, and to maintain the professional standards they could offer.”

The Peace Corps, originally pro posed by Senator Hubert Humphrey, and implemented by President John F. Kennedy, has undergone a steady and constant change since its incep tion nearly ten years ago. Its idea was revolutionary, its first volunteers were pioneers. Today, under the progres sive leadership of Joseph Blatchford, Peace Corps is not the same organi sation it was at its birth. Responding to new problems for an increasing number of new countries, the Peace Corps must, and is, reforming its goals to keep up with the ever changing wishes of host countries.

As is natural for an organisation of this kind, the Peace Corps has come under a lot of criticism both in the United States as well as abroad.

Much of the criticism has been con structive and helpful to this organisa tion, which has tried to improve on past mistakes and set its goals pro perly for the future. Some of the criticism has not been constructive, but only one-sided, degrading, and political.

The Peace Corps will have been in Western Samoa five years this Novem ber. It has been in other areas of the Pacific a few years longer. In Western Samoa, the Peace Corps has not been immune to attack, taking occasional rebuffs from the Samoa Times or the Pacific Islands Monthly, and rightly so, its record is not one of perfection.

If the Peace Corps of Senator Hum phrey and President Kennedy was an experiment, this experiment was mag nified considerably with the arrival of Group I in Western Samoa in Novem-

Letters

ber, 1967. I doubt if there were many people in the country at that time who knew what Peace Corps was doing there, or what it was supposed to do. It was with this shaky and un certain situation that Peace Corps began in Samoa.

Five years have passed. Peace Corps programme have come and gone, yet the Peace Corps remains.

Why? If this organisation is such a failure, why should the Government of Western Samoa waste its time?

The answer is simple, the Peace Corps in Western Samoa has been success ful and continues to be. Its successes far outweigh its failures.

Having been involved in a number of programmes, such as fisheries, treasury, economic development, architecture, agriculture, turtle re search, and education, the Peace Corps is planning for the arrival of two new groups within the next nine months.

It is education, however, where the Peace Corps has made incredible strides to make education more rele vant to the Samoan child, both in the rural villages, and in the urban areas.

What Peace Corps teachers found in the Education Department in 1968 was an irrelevant and stagnant situa tion. No thought was given to the differences between the village student and his counterpart in Apia. All students were required to take the same year-end final examination in Form II to qualify for a higher edu cation. This test, printed in New Zealand or Australia, dealt with sub jects such as parking meters and skyscrapers, and was concerned only with math and English. The highest scores in the country often showed a percentage of less than 20 per cent.

The “unqualified” Americans set out to change these and other dis crepancies within the department.

Under the tireless efforts of John Ryding, the UN science advisor, and with the co-operation of UNESCO, which provided science equipment, the Department of Education launched a new science and math programme which eventually in cluded social studies. This programme was possible only with the presence of the Peace Corps.

With the arrival of Peace Corps volunteer Dr. Jerry Hanna, the test ing system underwent a thorough re vamping. Working ceaselessly for three years, Dr. Hanna proceeded to provide a system of tests, testing, dis

tribution and correction that will surely be with the Education Depart ment for years to come.

If I may, I would like to take the efforts of one Peace Corps group to demonstrate what a bunch of “un professional” volunteers can do.

Group 111, consisting of 12 volunteers, arrived in Samoa in January, 1969.

All had BA or BS degrees from American universities. Five had done post-graduate work, while one held an MA in physics, another in math.

Four also had previous teaching ex perience in the United States.

Two years later, at the end of their regular two year hitch this is what had transpired; Five volunteers taught in Savaii, five in or around Apia. One volunteer worked in Treasury, while one returned home after about a year. The five Savaii volunteers had a record high success in initiating and implementing the fledgling science programme. The Savaii students achieved higher scores than ever be fore in competing with the students in Apia. The Apian teachers devised and expanded new programmes in scheduling, science, math, and coach ing. Six out of 11 volunteers signed on to stay for a third year, five in Western Samoa, one moving to Thai land. Two returned to Western Samoa as Peace Corps training staff, and two returned home.

One of the Savaii teachers remained in his village for the third year con tinuing to build on his outstanding math programme, while the other transferred to TTC in Apia to begin a new art programme. Following this he went to Fiji, and as a volunteer, worked as Assistant Director of the South Pacific Arts Festival in Fiji.

On the level of personal relationships, these volunteers were also responsive to local needs. Two stocked their school libraries with books from the United States, four taught school after hours for local villagers, one built a new house for his Samoan family, another sent his Samoan “sister” to the United States for an education.

These were the efforts of 11 Peace Corps volunteers of one Peace Corps group, but it doesn’t stop there. What about the architects who created the new “fale fono” in Apia, the excel lent teachers at Samoa College, Avele, St Joseph’s and the coaches at Chanel, and the members of a Samoan sing ing group, whose recordings, aired on 2AP, are sung by Samoan children throughout the country. If these volunteers were not successful on a “professional” basis, couldn’t they at least be counted for what they’ve done in human relations?

Many volunteers have learned to

speak Samoan fluently, some have even received “matai” titles. They are receptive to Samoan culture and custom, and have learned it as well as is possible for a “palagi”. They have become integrated members of families and villages, and are loved as if they were tied by blood. They live within the Samoan environment building their “fales”, bathing under an open pipe or in the public pool, and learning to like the Samoan food.

They have bridged a wide gap be tween two completely different cul tures, and have shown that people with such differences can work to gether, understand, and love each other. Isn’t this not also true of other Peace Corps countries?

Rob Shaffer.

Former Peace Corps Volunteer, Iva, Savaii, Western Samoa. • PIM has never attacked the Peace Corps, although some of the comments quoted may at times have caused pain, regrettably, to its mem bers or supporters. Always, we hope, any such pain is the stuff of which resolution and devotion are born, not the resignation of being unappreci ated.

Letters

Proof And Reproof

I'm always impressed by the many caustic writings appearing in the Letters to the Editor column of PIM.

PIM is, in fact, an excellent up-to-date informative source of teaching aids about the Pacific World. Unfor tunately, its value could easily be spoilt by impetuous terms such as “darned thing”, “damn thing” which appeared in [connection with] one of the letters in the August issue.

In the same issue Mr Higgins appeared to appreciate Sue Wendt’s article (Sept. ‘7l) about Niue which no doubt stirred his emotional longing to visit this place, “for some reason” as he put it.

My advice is this. Anyone wanting to assess Sue’s article is free to do so, when the accommodation facilities under construction are open. So Mr Higgins had better keep his hearing aid on to listen for the date.

H. P. Foliola.

Tuapa, Niue.

Two-Way Loyalty

The point made in your August issue about loyalty to Fiji-made products is well taken. But I hope that Fiji manufacturers also realise that loyalty is a two-way street.

As a housewife who does her regular shopping stint in Suva’s large supermarkets, I remember the time I got my tomato sauce-addicted children onto the home-grown pro duct, then had to go through the “withdrawal symptoms” with them when it disappeared off the shelves.

Other Fiji-manufactured items which have disappeared mysteriously from shops for varying lengths of time include coconut drop biscuits, honey, cigarette brands, paper towels, toilet rolls, passionfruit jam, corned beef and small-size flip flops.

Providing locally-made goods are up to scratch—and most Fiji-made items are very good—it is morally right, and economically sound, for residents to buy them. But I do ask that Fiji manufacturers keep their goods supplied to the store shelves.

If they do, I doubt if I’ll ever reach for an imported brand.

S. M. Barker (Mrs).

Suva, Fiji.