With each Peace Corps volunteer’s close of service comes a document called the Description of Service. It is a good summary of significant projects. Here is mine:After a competitive application process stressing practical skills, cross-cultural adaptability, and international experience, Michael Brannagan was invited to serve as a Business Development volunteer for Peace Corps in Suriname, South America from May 2008 to July 2010.
Peace Corps Suriname’s Pre-Service Training included a two-month cultural immersion period, in which Michael lived with a host family, attended formal Aucan language instruction, and organized a youth group as a sample project. Seminars led by business and organization leaders prepared Michael with the knowledge necessary to apply his skills within the Surinamese climate and culture. Pre-Service Training also included practical multi-day workshops in latrine construction and in agriculture methods in a tropical rainforest environment.
On August 2, 2008, Michael was sworn into Peace Corps service, and assigned to Diitabiki, the capital and cultural center of the Aucan people.
In September 2008, Michael was invited by the Surinamese Red Cross to participate in Food Security Assessment training, for which participants from four countries attended. After certification, Michael led an assessment team to determine the vulnerability of the people in his region after a devastating flood. His recommendation to supply planting material was approved, and Michael and two other volunteers partnered with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) to supply villages throughout the area with planting material while providing agriculture training. As a result of this project, farmers throughout the region were able to maintain their livelihoods and feed their families.
Because of the strategic position of his village, Michael was asked by the Peace Corps Safety and Security officer to serve as the warden of his region. Michael’s responsibilities as warden included: establishing a communication plan among villages not connected by roads or telephone coverage, running drills to test speed of communication, and developing exit strategies for evacuating the country based in an emergency.
In response to an expressed desire for knowledge beyond the borders of Suriname, Michael worked with community partners to develop a geography radio program. In the research phase, he and the director of the Pakaati radio station compiled profiles of every country in the world recorded in the Aucan language. These recordings, usually an hour or more in length per country, took nearly ten months to compile and covered such diverse topics as systems of government, economy, cultural groups and customs, physical geography, and history. The director of Radio Pakaati hopes to use the recordings to write the first book on world history in the Aucan language. This project has built the capacity of the radio station to share the world with their listeners and increased the people’s knowledge of the word outside the rain forest.
Through his relationship with the Pakaati radio station, Michael began a weekly radio program on small business economics, which he hosted live in the Aucan language. Michael organized multiple resources to write and translate four months of original episodes, using culturally relevant examples to communicate successful business practice to entrepreneurs. As a result of the radio program, community members as far as thirty miles upriver showed interest in obtaining episode recordings or in receiving consultation, and the Peace Corps country staff plans to use his episodes as a template for future projects.
Because of the popularity of Michael’s economics program, a local entrepreneur asked for business consultation. They explored the potential of using the business as a distribution center for local bakeries, though this was cost prohibitive. Covering basic startup concepts of bookkeeping, customer service, sales skills, costs and pricing, and marginal analysis, Michael gained significant experience in small business consulting.
Michael also provided information to Radio Pakaati on AIDS prevention and awareness, focusing on good family relationships. As a result of the AIDS program, people in the region are better informed about AIDS and its transmission and less fearful of interacting with those who have the disease.
In an effort to reduce costs and improve village selection, Peace Corps Suriname asked Michael to take the lead as a site development liaison. In selection and bringing the future volunteer sites up to safety standards, Michael and two other volunteers coordinated the actions of community partners and Peace Corps staff in nearly every stage of the process. He spent days at a time in the future sites, made a network of contacts, selected houses for future volunteers, evaluated purchasing needs, coordinated distribution of building materials, and resolved cost concerns addressed by community members. Because of Michael’s efforts in working beyond his project scope, Peace Corps has fully established its presence in villages that would not have otherwise received a volunteer.
In conjunction with Radio Pakaati’s geography radio program, and a UNICEF youth journalism project, Michael conducted a world map mural activity for the Diitabiki primary school. He applied for funding, and UNICEF sponsored the project in full. As a result of patient training and supervision, the local students took ownership in painting the majority of the mural’s surface. The mural promises to serve as a beautiful legacy of Peace Corps’s partnership in Diitabiki for many years.
In response to a request from the Surinamese Ministry of Education to Peace Corps, Michael taught a peer pressure and decision-making class for graduating students who will be attending middle school in the city. Ndjuka children as young as 12 years of age have faced great challenges when moving to an urban environment without their parents, and Michael hopes the students will be better prepared for this transition as a result of this project.
In addition to his larger projects, Michael also engaged in secondary activities, including hosting and translating for several Surinamese and international organizations visiting his village, reporting and translating for the local radio station, training radio workers in sound recording equipment, giving English classes, providing computer training for four adults, and organizing a youth sports club.
Michael received certifications from the Pan-American Health Organization in latrine construction and sanitation methods, the Inter-American Development Bank in citizenship participation and responsibility training, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in food security assessment training, and the United Nations Children’s Fund in water and sanitation training.
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