Shari Hubert and the Peace Corps: The Experience of a Lifetime for African-American Volunteers

The Peace Corps’ Shari Hubert and President Barack Obama are looking for a few good men and women — of color — to serve in the world’s most prestigious and effective volunteer organization.

As President Obama pledges to significantly increase the number of Peace Corps volunteers serving around the globe, he has appointed Hubert as the Peace Corps’ Director of Recruitment to attract more talented, educated African Americans who yearn to serve in an overseas capacity. Currently only about 3 percent of Peace Corp volunteers are African  American.

Since the Peace Corps was founded by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, African American men and women have enjoyed a 50-year legacy of volunteering in over 100 countries across the globe. Hubert discerns that young African Americans are not always aware of this, nor of the benefits of being a Peace Corps volunteer — not only to the people they serve, but to themselves as well.

The Peace Corps is not an interruption of your life where you work for free, Hubert conveys, but just the opposite. It may just put you on the fast track to success for the rest of your life. As Hubert points out, while you are working to uplift others around the world, the Peace Corps takes care of you from a financial, educational, and professional standpoint.

“We provide a living allowance and it’s equivalent to what a teacher makes. We pay for … housing, your medical, dental, and that living allowance is really over and above. You get 48 paid holidays. We pay for your travel to that country that you’re going to serve, as well as your home at the end of your service,” Hubert says. “At the end of your service you get a little over $6,000 living allowance adjustment that helps you adjust back into society. You get to access a full spectrum of graduate programs, what we call US fellowship programs.”

From a professional standpoint, the advantages that you accrue from your work in the Peace Corps is substantial. Like those who serve in the military, Peace Corps volunteers enjoy that extra intangible benefit that helps them differentiate themselves during these precarious times.

“In this recession, it’s a great opportunity to focus on great strategy, personal and professional strategy. It really makes you marketable. Employers at corporations, the federal  government, for profit or nonprofit — they know that you have real tangible skill sets. You have to be very resourceful to create a lot out of very little [in the Peace Corps]. They know that you have that instance international experience. You have two years living abroad and the average person does not have that experience. It means a lot from a leadership perspective.”

The point Hubert makes is this: Give the world two years of your life, and the world will give you back so much more in return. –terry shropshire