On the average Monday through Friday, this is what you can find me doing as a coastal resource management Volunteer in the Philippines.

Did you know you can serve in the Peace Corps as a music teacher or animation specialist? 

For those not familiar with Peace Corps lingo, a counterpart is a person in a Volunteer’s host community who works alongside the Volunteer. 

In 2015, I spent months traveling around the Philippines hearing incredible stories of community empowerment. 

The number 8 has been long considered a lucky number by the Chinese and other Asian cultures. As I end my year-long assignment with Peace Corps Response in the Philippines in Region 8, I cannot help but think how lucky I am to have lived and served in these parts of the country. 

It goes by different names: tubig, nsuo, wata. In my childhood home, the H₂O flowing through our pipes was known best as “water.”

Peace Corps prepared Jerica Ward for her career in international service – so much so that she will enter the Foreign Service in the fall of this year to begin her work as a U.S. diplomat.

The Peace Corps is an opportunity to wear many hats and perform a number of roles in which you may or may not have experience. 

Since the first day of my Peace Corps Response journey, I’ve had to strip away everything I once thought I knew about serving abroad and start over.