Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Next year, the Peace Corps will celebrate its
fiftieth anniversary. Peace Corps volunteers are
Americans who teach and work on projects in
developing countries. The United States created the
Peace Corps during the cold war with the Soviet
Union. Today, technology has changed how the
volunteers do their work and stay connected with
friends and family back home. In the early nineteen
eighties, Gordy Mengel served in Zaire, now the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Letters from home
would take weeks, or months. As a result, he
socialized more with people in the local community.
He lost contact with friends and family back in the
States. Today, Gordy Mengel is a Peace Corps
programming and training officer in Rwanda.He says
these days are different because of the Internet and
cell phone service. When volunteers go back to their
homes in villages, they can get on Skype or they
give a quick call to Mom and Dad back at home. Sonia
Morhange is one of about one hundred Peace Corps
volunteers in Rwanda. She talks with a friend in
California on Skype, an Internet calling service.
She talks with her mother on the phone and e-mails
her father. She says: "I can't imagine having been a
Peace Corps volunteer in the seventies or the
eighties or even the early nineties. I'm just so
used to everyone having a cell phone that works
internationally. I'm very, very lucky in the fact
that where I live I have wireless Internet and that
makes it a lot easier." Peace Corps volunteers
receive a living allowance and other benefits in
return for twenty-seven months of training and
service. John Reddy is the country director in
Rwanda. He says fairly easy access to the Internet
means that volunteers can do more than just call
home. They can research subjects to help their
communities. And, through the Peace Corps
Partnership Program, they can get donations online
for their projects.But John Reddy admits he
sometimes misses the old days, before the Internet
and good phone service. He says volunteers had more
independence then. You can comment on this story and
find other Education Reports online at
voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find us on
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and iTunes at VOA
Learning English. For VOA Special English I'm Alex
Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
