How do Peace Corps (or similar) volunteers communicate their experiences in the field?

August 18, 2010 12:18 PM

What tools do Peace Corps (or similar) volunteers use to communicate their experiences in the field? I'm especially looking for creative uses of digital/web communication tools: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, etc.. Bonus points for any good examples. Thanks!
posted by charmston to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I don't have any experience with the Peace Corp, but I stumbled onto this blog a few years ago and, from an outsiders perspective, found it very interesting. I think the layout changed, but I found enjoyed reading and looking through her photo galleries.
posted by iscavenger at 1:09 PM on August 18, 2010

A friend of mine did Peace Corps in Cameroon and used Blogspot to document it. link
When I lived in London (non-PC) I hosted my pictures on Flickr and just setup a wordpress blog for people to check in with me at.
posted by msbutah at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2010

I did a post about this a while back. Peace Corps Journals is the most comprehensive index of volunteer blogs/assorted social network sites I found.
posted by cog_nate at 1:43 PM on August 18, 2010

My cousin kept a blog about her Peace Corps experiences (I think she's still in Mozambique, but hasn't posted lately). She also occasionally has posted to facebook, and put some pretty cool pics on Flickr as well.
posted by epersonae at 1:52 PM on August 18, 2010

Another few hundred intl volunteer blogs indexed here. Twitter and Flickr are used, I don't have a similarly thorough index but those links are a starting point. Facebook I don't really have anything for, as I think it tends to be inherently more of a private thing. I guess volunteers put up photos and status updates about their life in the field the same as anybody else does, but if you're not their friend you wouldn't know about it. There is some use of Flip cameras, but when you're on a rural placement in a developing country, getting the connectivity to upload videos is generally a stumbling block to regularly maintaining what you could really call a video blog.
posted by Slyfen at 2:05 PM on August 18, 2010