How the Peace Corps is Building a Community of Volunteers Online

When volunteers return home from service with The Peace Corps, they often want to stay in touch with fellow Corps members. Can social media help them do that?

Yes, says Erica Burman, director of communications at The National Peace Corps Association (NPCA).

The Peace Corps, a U.S. service program, sends Americans across the world to volunteer and develop cross-cultural understanding. Peace Corps members, who serve for 27 months, share a bond with one another. "Once a volunteer, always a volunteer," goes their informal motto.

Erica Burman's organization is an "alumni association" for Peace Corps volunteers who have returned home. The NPCA's mission is to keep returned volunteers involved with the greater Peace Corps community. And according to Burman, plenty of her community building is done online.

"Social media is really important to us," says Burman. "The Peace Corps community is very mobile, diverse and fragmented. In pre-Internet days, there were definitely some challenges in keeping connected."

Before the days of social media, trying to maintain a community of returned volunteers was a tedious challenge. Before Peace Corps volunteers were sent home, they would be asked to to share their info with the NPCA. Often, they didn't agree to do that. A lack of information about returned volunteers' whereabouts became a major roadblock in the way of forming a cohesive community.

But social media has changed that. Volunteers have been forming their own online communities to reconnect and talk about their time in the Peace Corps. For that reason, fragmentation is a daily struggle for Burman's online efforts at the NPCA. Volunteers often make their own niche groups or communities around their personal profiles or interests. There are online groups for black volunteers, blind volunteers and volunteers interested in fair trade coffee issues or water access issues.

The NPCA makes it a point to celebrate these user-created groups while simultaneously tying them to the larger Peace Corps online community.

Burman's team has a presence on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter, and the NPCA is always looking for new ways to get volunteers back in the fold.

"We're trying to use all the means we can to connect people," says Burman.

The NPCA's online platforms can serve as a way for former volunteers to share their common experience during and after their service. After living in new and very different societies for over two years, returning to the U.S. can cause reverse culture shock. Psychologists have tied this "re-entry shock" to depression and other mental health problems. Volunteers who experience re-entry shock can find one another online to work through their emotions together.

These communities aren't just for returned volunteers, either. With so many Peace Corps members online, the NPCA's social media spaces have become great resources for prospective volunteers to learn more about the 2-year odyssey on which they're about to embark.

"We've usually got about 4,000 people in our 'Future Peace Corps Volunteer Group' on Facebook," says Burman. "We totally encourage prospective volunteers and their family members to connect with these online communities. They've hosted meetups in cities such as D.C. and Boston. These groups are excellent sources of info."

Burman says that returned Peace Corps volunteers want to continue volunteering back home and share their cross-cultural experience with the rest of America. According to Berman, Peace Corps volunteers have a unique voice that should be better heard in the U.S.

"It's wonderful that we have these tools that people can connect, but our message is make sure you're connected to the larger community," says Burman. "We have unique skills and perspectives and a voice that can be unique perspective in our country. There's a call that [Peace Corps volunteers] continue to serve throughout their lives."

What do you think of the Peace Corps' efforts to reunite and organize returned volunteers online? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang