This is the fourth in a series of Q&As with returned Peace Corps Volunteers who identify as first-generation college students and/or new Americans. Learn how they navigated the challenges of the decision-making process and service abroad.

My father, John Young, is the primary reason why I decided to join the Peace Corps.

From rural villages to busy cities, women are the backbone of society. They are health care professionals, local organizers, inventive entrepreneurs, sustainability-minded farmers and dedicated educators.

It started with a blanket – and a question.

Growing up in the Deep South, there was this mantra that surrounded me constantly: “I’m trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.”

Peace Corps Response offers volunteer opportunities for experienced professionals to serve in communities around the world. 

Libraries make information more accessible and provide places for people of all ages to read, study and learn about the larger world. They’re also valuable as community meeting spaces and technology hubs.

Meeting a deaf Peace Corps Volunteer convinced Francis Phiri, a young deaf man from Zambia, that international exchange was a possibility for him too.

“You teach English and mathematics? That’s unusual for Zambia,” a friendly man I met while traveling back to my site said the other day.