Peace Corps Volunteer Whitney Goldman, Shares Her Experiences With Rotarians
Photo By: Ron Roth
Eighteen years after ethnic genocide resulted in the murders of as many as a million Rwandans, the landlocked central African nation is making slow but steady progress toward improving the lives of its people.
Peace Corps volunteers from the United States are doing their part to help, said Whitney Goldman, who spoke to Bluffton Rotarians this week. Goldman, whose parents live on Hilton Head Island, was home on a break from her work in Rwanda, where she lives with her husband and fellow Peace Corps volunteer.
Considerable international aid came to Rwanda after years of spasmodic violence between the country’s majority Hutu and minority Tutsi boiled over in 1994. After 100 days of horrific violence, the number of dead was estimated to be between 800,000 and 1 million.
A period of national reconciliation began when the violence ebbed, and for the past decade Rwanda's economy and tourist numbers have grown slowly but steadily. The country has low levels of corruption, and Transparency International ranked Rwanda as the eighth cleanest out of 47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. But Goldman said that despite the improvements, much work remains to be done.
“There’s virtually no private-sector industry in Rwanda,” Goldman said. “The people survive mostly with subsistence farming. They can’t exchange agricultural products because there’s no infrastructure.”
Although Rwanda is a small nation, its population of 11.7 million makes its population density among the highest in Africa. The government has made supplying clean water a priority, and Goldman said that water storage and hygiene are key parts of the Peace Corps mission in Kivu village, where she lives with her husband.
Other Peace Corps priorities in Kivu Village include improving access to dental care, teaching villagers how to produce soy milk and raise cattle, computer literacy training, and developing a resource and training program for teachers who work in schools without computers or electricity.
Goldman said that Peace Corps has three goals:
1. To serve other nations by providing skilled volunteers to help meet the basic needs of people living in the poorest areas of such countries.
2. To promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served.
3. To promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people.
Goldman said that Corps volunteers focus on education, health, agriculture, environment, youth and community development, business and information and communication technology.
Rotary and the Peace Corps have natural connections because of their focus on volunteering to participate in international cooperative and exchange projects aimed at furthering international understanding and peace. Goldman said that American Rotary Clubs can financially support specific projects in Rwanda, and the Rotary Club in Kigale, the nation’s capital, will provide matching grants.
Individuals can also support specific projects through the Peace Corps Partnership Program (www.donate.peacecorps.gov).