FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, July 1, 1998

Students from Texas Southern to Spend Summer Overseas With Peace Corps Volunteers; Event Planned in Houston on July 9 to Send-Off Students

Washington, D.C., July 1, 1998—The Peace Corps and Texas Southern University (TSU) will host an event next week in Houston to honor six TSU students, who will intern for six weeks with current Peace Corps volunteers in South Africa, Ghana, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The event, which is being held in conjunction with the Mickey Leland Center on World Hunger, will be held at 6:30 p.m. July 9 at the Sheraton Houston Brookhollow Hotel.
The interns, all from the Houston area, will work to increase minority student interest in global service careers. The six young women, five of whom are African-American and one of whom is Latina, will work with Peace Corps staff and volunteers in the various countries. Their projects, which are consistent with their study at TSU, will center on economic development and education.
"We\'re are excited about this new venture and partnership with Texas Southern University," said Ambassador Charles Baquet III, Deputy Director of the Peace Corps who will be attending the send-off event. "This is just one of several new outreach programs instituted by the Peace Corps, as part of a broader strategy to attract more minorities to Peace Corps service."
Because interest in the Peace Corps remains so strong at home and the need overseas so great, President Clinton has proposed expanding the Peace Corps, putting the agency on the path to 10,000 volunteers serving overseas by the year 2000.
The participants in the TSU program are: Kamarah Scott, who will intern in the Dominican Republic; LaQuinta Wardsworth of Houston, who will intern in Ghana; LaWanda Green of Crosby, Tex., who will intern in Haiti; Patrice Becnel of Houston,, Darlene Brown of Houston, and Ana Hernandez of Pasadena, TX, who will all intern in South Africa.
LaQuinta Wardsworth, 22, calls the internship a "good opportunity. The people in my community don\'t know much about other parts of world. What I have learned I can give back to my generation and future generations."
Currently, about 6,500 Peace Corps volunteers are working in 81 countries to help fight hunger, bring clean water to communities, teach children, protect the environment, help start new small businesses and prevent the spread of AIDS.

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