North Texas woman among first Peace Corps volunteers to return to service after COVID
Peace Corps volunteers are returning overseas after the agency’s global evacuation in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
A Granbury woman is part of the group heading to Sierra Leone.
Kendall Carroll and the other members of the group will travel to the West African nation June 23 for three months of intensive training in the capital city of Freetown. Afterward they will spend two years serving throughout the country. Carroll doesn’t know her service location.
She said there are pros and cons to being part of the first group back in the country.
“It would be nice to be able to meet up with someone that has freshly come from wherever I’m going and get the idea,” Carroll said. “But it’s also nice that I’m not living up to anyone else’s legacy or expectations, so I can just be myself, and hopefully that’s enough.”
Don Holly, the Dallas-based regional recruiter for the Peace Corps, said the agency started sending groups back overseas earlier this year.
Volunteers arrived in Zambia and the Dominican Republic in March. The agency hopes to be in 40 countries by the end of the year, Holly said.
“We’re excited to have them back out to the field working and doing the things that everybody knows us for,” Holly said.
The Peace Corps began in 1961 as an independent U.S. government agency designed to promote mutual understanding between citizens of the United States and foreign countries. Volunteers assist with areas like education, agriculture and health care.
Carroll, 22, who recently graduated from Texas State University with a bachelor’s degree in social work, will serve in the health sector.
She said it’s going to be a wake-up call to see how COVID-19 affected the people of Sierra Leone.
To date, the World Health Organization has recorded 7,682 confirmed cases and 125 COVID-19 deaths in the nation of 8 million.
There was also an economic impact, with a 2% increase in poverty recorded by the World Bank.
“COVID has hit them really hard,” Carroll said. “So there’s going to be a lot of aftershocks to witness in families.”
Holly said the devastation wrought by the pandemic makes it vital that Peace Corps volunteers return overseas as soon as possible.
“We are here to pick up the ... pieces after we experienced a pandemic that not only impacted us here at home, but has impacted people across the globe,” Holly said.
Carroll said she doesn’t know the specifics of her job, but she expects she will connect people with resources and educate them on things like sanitation practices and birth control.
She said she’s most looking forward to building long-term relationships with the people in her new community and learning from them.
“I feel really lucky that I’m getting to go ...” Carroll said. “Not everyone gets to do this.”
Carroll’s older sister, Peyton Carroll, described her as happy, caring and good with people.
“I think it all makes sense, given who she is, that that’s what she would do,” Peyton Carroll said.
The Carroll sisters are just 18 months apart. Peyton Carroll said she will miss her sister, but she is excited about the opportunity.
“I know she’s going to be great at it,” she said.
Carroll learned in February she would go to Sierra Leone. Ever since she’s been researching the country and culture and reading testimonies of other Peace Corps volunteers. She’s also found time to work on the language, Krio.
Even though she’s facing a lot of unknowns, from her housing situation to her exact job description, she said she’s trying to stay open to anything.
“I could get nervous and I could get scared,” Carroll said. “But I’m choosing just to get excited because that’s just a much more positive way to go into this experience.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
