This news has bummed out, I'm pretty sure, every single volunteer in Honduras! Ya, i don't drink, but I am still a huge fan of meeting up with all the other volunteers in my area when the opportunity presents itself, and I was very excited to go to Copan Ruinas for Halloween! I will still make it over there eventually, but not for Halloween, I guess.
This has come as a surprise to most of the volunteers I have talked to about this since I read the e-mail about an hour ago. We all know and understand the Peace Corps Honduras is one of the high-risk countries, and so we all try to make the best of it. We stay in our sites and work, and then every so often are able to get together with other gringo/english speakers to take a break from our harsh realities for a moment. But, now PC has taken that away from us. Yes, we can still meet a few people here and there, but the fact that they are choosing to run our lives like this, makes things very frustrating.
I understand that there is a fine line between safe and out of control. When you have 45 gringos running around the streets of a city, probably a little out of control, but the fact of the matter is, i don't think any Hondurans would have the guts to try and rob that many gringos at one time! And as for safety - we all see things happen everyday that are scary and make us realize we are not in "kansas" anymore. We are most likely going to be robbed on a bus at some point during our stay here in Honduras, and we will probably see a dead person, too...these things are going to happen whether we are in a big group of gringos or solo - so why take our one last chance at sanity?
It said in the e-mail from our Country Director that we can't act like we did in the United States and go out and get drunk and crazy, and that ignoring the warnings of the Peace Corps could land us thrown out of country!!! That is enough to make most of us listen to these new policies, but we will do so begrudgingly!
Bellow is the letter that our Country Director forwarded us from the regional safety and security officer.
FROM: Carlos J. Torres, Regional Director for the Inter-America & Pacific Region
DATE: September 13, 2011
RE: Safety and Security
The safety and security of Peace Corps Volunteers is the Peace Corps’ highest priority.
We devote significant resources to providing Volunteers with the training, support, and
information they need to stay healthy and safe. At your post and here at Headquarters,
we are diligent in monitoring data, trends and promising practices to promote safe service
experiences for our Volunteers around the world.
The security environment for Volunteer service varies greatly across our 70+ countries of
operations. Many countries in Latin America have unique crime environments, including
countries where the State Department classifies crime as “critical” and where the Peace
Corps observes a higher incidence of crimes against Volunteers. Many of these
countries, including yours, are fantastic for meaningful Volunteer service and achieving
the Peace Corps’ three goals. However, the security environment requires greater
diligence and effort on the part of Volunteers, post staff, and the team here at
Headquarters as we work in our shared responsibility to promote Volunteer safety and
security. As a veteran of living and working in Latin America for over 30 years, I am
personally aware of this reality and I am fully committed to doing everything possible to
work with your Country Director to promote a safe, productive Volunteer experience.
Through this commitment and based on analysis of trends and practices in Latin America
and across the Peace Corps globe, I am asking you, your Country Director and your
Peace Corps post to adopt a series of reforms and policy changes. These reforms and
policy changes are aimed entirely at impacting the safety and security of Volunteers in a
positive way.
Specifically, I am asking for the following:
• Implementation of a 2-year host family stay program for new Volunteers;
• Time spent Out of Community for personal reasons (Personal Leave) cannot
exceed 3 overnights per month;
• Prohibition of large overnight gatherings of Volunteers, such as “despedidas” and
Halloween, due to security risks resulting from alcohol consumption and late-night
hours, unless pre-approved by the Country Director;
• We strengthen additional safety and security related policies of Volunteer
Handbooks, such as enforcement of Whereabouts and Travel policies;
• We strengthen the analysis of statistics, monitoring of data and mapping to assist
posts to monitor crime environments;
• We reduce the numbers of Volunteers which will enable us to enhance Volunteer
support;
• Further strengthen site identification and preparation; and,
• Increase the number of field /site visits provided by the Peace Corps to our
Volunteers in their host communities during service, particularly in the first six
months of service.
Through this memorandum I am asking that you work together with the staff and
leadership at your post to ensure successful implementation of these reforms and policy
changes. I realize some may not come easily, involve a change in the way we have done
business in the past, and require flexibility and adaptability on all of our parts.
I fully recognize there is no single answer which will provide a solution to the crime
environment in many Peace Corps countries around the world. However I do believe that
working together, as Volunteers, post staff, and Headquarters, we can and should take all
necessary actions that will mitigate risk for current and future Volunteers. That is the
sole intention of the reforms and policy changes that we are implementing in Honduras.
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