INTERVIEW: Peace Corps' country director for Ukraine

by Oksana Piaseckyj
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

MIAMI - Karl Beck, director of the Peace Corps in Ukraine, consented to an interview here after a fund-raising event for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, where he was a featured speaker.

Mr. Beck charms with his sensitive and analytic interpretations of events in Ukraine. Entertaining and informative anecdotes from his years of diplomatic journeys and assignments flowed effortlessly during our interview. When the subject came to Ukraine and its people, it was evident that Mr. Beck is truly dedicated and takes a very optimistic view of its future.

As the director of the Peace Corps program in Ukraine, Mr. Beck today oversees 235 volunteers. With so many volunteers, Peace Corps Ukraine is the largest of all the Peace Corps programs in 80 countries. Over the next 18 months Peace Corps Ukraine plans further growth - up to 300 volunteers.

Mr. Beck arrived in Kyiv to take up his assignment as Peace Corps country director in October 2000. In the past he was a Peace Corps volunteer teacher trainer in Africa in the 1960s; he went on to be a U.S. diplomat, university professor and international civil servant over the next 30 years.

Peace Corps was born on October 14, 1960, when President John F. Kennedy inspired the American nation in a speech at the University of Michigan, asking how many would be willing to serve developing countries for the good of the United States. He envisioned a "decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace."

From that vision a new public service called Peace Corps began. Since 1961, 168,000 Americans have used their diverse skills to improve conditions in more than 135 countries.

Q: Would you give the readers of The Ukrainian Weekly the background of how the Peace Corps came into Ukraine and how it operates.

A: In 1992, Peace Corps' Ukraine program was the first to set up operations in a successor state of the former Soviet Union. To date 1,000 Americans of all demographic groups have performed teaching, consulting and advisory services in Ukrainian schools, universities, business centers, nature and environmental centers, local government offices and non-governmental organizations.

In addition to their primary job responsibilities as English and management teachers, business advisors and environmental activists, volunteers work as change agents in Ukrainian towns and villages, carrying out community projects that address youth leadership training, HIV/AIDS education and awareness-building, teacher training, gender issues, curriculum and textbook development, Internet and computer training, and civil society development through non-governmental organizations that provide aid to the poor, promote environmental clean-ups, discourage young women from accepting risky foreign employment propositions, encourage networking among youth leaders, upgrade schools, organize summer camps and tackle many other community needs.

Because they live and work in Ukrainian communities without the special advantages that foreign development experts normally have, volunteers succeed in directly representing the United States and its people and culture to Ukrainian people of all walks of life. At the close of 27 months of service, each Volunteer brings back to the United States knowledge and understanding of Ukrainians that usually cause them to continue to be active in U.S.-Ukrainian relations for many years.

Q: How did you find yourself in this position?

A: It was something I had wanted to do for a long time. I was a Peace Corps volunteer just after I finished college and then worked on the country staffs of three Peace Corps programs in Africa in the early '70s. I liked the work and especially the contacts with the people who join Peace Corps and their host country counterparts. I always looked forward to returning to Peace Corps. Of course in the '60s and '70s, I never would have imagined one day I would work for Peace Corps east of what was then the Iron Curtain.

Q: What is the structure of your organization in Ukraine?

A: Our structure mirrors our responsibilities to volunteers and Ukrainians. We have a training office that provides pre-service and in-service training to volunteers and their Ukrainian counterparts. This training equips the American volunteer to communicate in the language commonly used at his/her site and to operate in the Ukrainian context. We also have a Programming Section that finds job assignments for volunteers and supports them in the professional and personal adjustment areas and a Medical Section that works to keep volunteers healthy. Of course there is also a Financial and Administrative Section that supports all the other sections and makes sure volunteers receive their monthly living allowances and all other financial support they are entitled to.

Q: What is the size of Peace Corps and its distribution across Ukraine?

A: At present we have 235 volunteers distributed more or less evenly throughout Ukraine's 24 oblasts and Crimea. Of course this distribution is influenced by Ukrainian population densities and by the various levels of progressive development that are occurring in the different parts of the country. We especially seek opportunities to place volunteers in disadvantaged areas where extreme poverty and other problems make it hard for people to hope for a better future.

Q: What types of projects are currently pursued?

A: Peace Corps Ukraine carries out three categories of projects. Approximately 100 volunteers work in English language education. This includes teaching at the secondary school and university levels, and several types and levels of teacher training for Ukrainian teachers of English.

An equal number of volunteers work as management educators in a great variety of assignments that include business consulting and advisory services, teaching business in high schools and universities and working on the staffs of non-governmental organizations that target community needs.

In addition we have a small Environment Project in which volunteers mostly help community organizations and nature centers educate youth about the need to protect the environment and the methods of doing so.

Q: How is help received? What are the attitudes toward volunteers?

A: There is a lot of interest on the part of Ukrainians in working with Americans, but often neither side understands in the beginning what this entails. Often the Ukrainian partners want to change old attitudes and methods but have given little thought to the difficult challenges that change will present to them. On the American side, the volunteer wants "to get things done."

When there is sufficient good will on both sides, Ukrainians and Americans almost always find a way to cooperate and learn from each other. But usually the initial six months of a volunteer's service are a difficult and frustrating time when the volunteer sees little progress and the Ukrainian counterpart feels the American should have more patience.

Q: What are some of your success stories?

A: There are many. They range from the achievements of a grandmother from Bowling Green, Ohio, who revamped and strengthened the management of Donetsk's largest and most effective public charity to the success of a young woman from southern California who taught a whole class of second graders in a Ternopil Oblast village to speak English so fluently that the kids could grill me in English for more than an hour with questions and opinions when I visited the school.

Peace Corps Ukraine volunteers' successes also include the work of another grandmother from Atlanta who wrote state-of-the-art textbooks for five years of university-level English teacher training, the creation by a retired architect from Princeton, N.J., of green parks throughout a western Ukrainian town, the training by a young Cornell University business graduate of dozens of dairy farmers in the Lviv Oblast about how to manage the business aspects of farming, the refurbishment of a Kirovohrad orphanage by a young man from Connecticut, the launching of a nationwide campaign against the spread of HIV/Aids by a young woman from New York City, the establishment of women's business centers in Crimean Tatar villages by a woman from Dallas who before retirement had been one of Kodak's top managers, and the list goes on and on.

I believe volunteers' most important successes are those that promote the development of individual Ukrainians and help them realize their full potential.

Once when I was talking with the young man who manages the Ukraine branch of the Gillette Co., I asked him if he knew anything about Peace Corps. He replied that a Peace Corps volunteer changed his life one day. When he was a 16-year-old high school student in an eastern Ukrainian village, he went along with a friend to a Saturday meeting for students who wanted to learn how to become businessmen. At the meeting an old man named Ralph who said he was a Peace Corps volunteer told the kids if they wanted to succeed they should try being different.

The Gillette manager recalled that this advice shocked him profoundly because his entire upbringing had taught him to be the same as everyone else. After a few days' reflection he took Ralph's advice and started on a course that led him to an MBA from Clark University in Massachusetts and a senior position with an American company.

This process of human development is the essential value of Peace Corps' work. The other day in Ivano-Frankivsk, the director of a business center was praising the contributions of his young Ukrainian American volunteer from Chicago. The center director shook his head in amazement as he said, "Mark keeps coming up with ideas we never would have dreamed of."

Q: What are some problems you encountered?

A: When I first arrived in Ukraine, I made the same mistake most Americans make. I tried to appeal to the intellectual side of the people I was working with. It took me a while to understand how important the emotional side also is. It has been one of my goals to make the Peace Corps office and our operations in Ukraine a reflection of the modern management techniques and principles that our volunteers teach in Ukrainian schools and business centers.

At first this posed some very heavy issues for my Ukrainian colleagues in our office. For the most part they were used to top down management and to a work culture that discouraged information-sharing and the assumption of personal responsibility.

I found, however, that if I succeeded in clearly explaining the purposes of the changes we were trying to implement and if the Ukrainian colleagues could perceive the benefits the changes eventually would bring, the pace of successful change became very fast. At this time I am quite satisfied that we now have an office and an operation that is second to almost no others in Ukraine in efficiency, effectiveness and client service.

Q: What are the requirements for becoming a Peace Corps volunteer?

A: The applicant should be a U.S. citizen and at least 18 years old. He/she also should be in sufficiently good health to be able to live and work in the country of assignment, and there should be a demonstrable desire to serve and contribute to the development of people.

Q: Are there other organizations similar to yours in Ukraine? If so, what are they and how are they organized?

A: I am not aware of any.

Q: How is a Peace Corps volunteer prepared for his/her job in Ukraine?

A: For three months after arrival, the new volunteers live in groups of four in small towns and villages where each volunteer lives with a Ukrainian host family. During these home stays, the volunteers receive lessons in culture and language from Ukrainian teachers, and design and carry out practical work in schools or organizations that are like the sites where they eventually will go for their two years of service.

In addition, to promote continued language and cross-cultural learning, for three months after the new volunteers arrive at their sites they also live with Ukrainian host families. Volunteers can continue to receive language and professional skills training for the entire two years they are working in Ukraine.

Q: What do volunteers find most memorable after their stint in Ukraine?

A: I have a lengthy conversation with every volunteer at the end of service. From the views volunteers have expressed in these conversations, I would guess that the most frequently felt sentiment that they carry home has to do with the "heartfelt" nature of Ukrainian friendship. Almost all volunteers stay in touch with the Ukrainian friends they have made during their service. Many former volunteers return again and again to Ukraine to visit their friends and to experience the special feeling of being part of Ukrainian society.

I suspect also that almost everyone goes home with an embroidered dress or shirt and a favorite recipe for borsch.

Q: What do they find most objectionable?

A: The winter weather and lack of heat and water would be high on their lists. But I think all of them would agree that the most difficult thing about working in Ukraine is the pessimism of so many Ukrainian people. This pessimism is understandable given the ancient and more recent history of the Ukrainian nation.

And it is not every volunteer who succeeds in causing his/her site supervisor to express something as appreciative as one in Lviv did about a volunteer business advisor from San Diego. The volunteer's supervisor wrote: "Where we see only problems, she always sees opportunities."

Q: What is President Leonid Kuchma's attitude toward the Peace Corps?

A: Peace Corps operates at the grassroots; so we don't have any real contact with President Kuchma. When we have needed the help of the presidential administration, it has always been offered promptly and effectively. Ministers who work for the president and prime minister are more frequently in touch with us, and we collaborate with them and their subordinates without any hitches. This would lead me to conclude that President Kuchma and his administration are positive in their views of the work of volunteers in Ukraine.

Q: Is the Peace Corps viewed as an extension of American security forces?

A: I see no evidence of this. I believe Ukrainians accept the essentially non-political nature of Peace Corps and our volunteers.

Q: You have been there for three years. What changes have you observed, and what do you envision for the future?

A: Over the three years I have visited every oblast and Crimea several times. With each visit everywhere, I see definite physical signs of repairs of old buildings, openings of new businesses and construction of new single-family homes. More important, however, is the great proliferation of start-ups of non-governmental organizations that are working without government support on every conceivable community problem.

The private sector and civil society are expanding rapidly in all parts of Ukraine. It often seems to me that large numbers of Ukrainian people have awakened from a long sleep of despair and helplessness. Now they are reaching out to grab a future that is not yet knowable in its entirety, but which certainly will be greatly influenced by strongly held notions of individualism and self-help.

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The Peace Corps especially encourages Ukrainian Americans and other people with fluent Ukrainian and other Slavic language skills to contact Peace Corps via the website http://www.peacecorps.gov or by calling the toll-free number (800) 424-8580 to find opportunities in Ukraine.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 24, 2003, No. 34, Vol. LXXI

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