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Digital Library Story Ideas and Suggestions

"Camel Caravan to Chinguetti"
contributed by Laura Lartigue, RPCV Mauritania

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the Peace Corps Digital Library. Your contribution will help ensure that the Peace Corps’ rich legacy of service is maintained for future generations.

We are currently accepting online submissions only. You will need to save your story as a document (.doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt file) before beginning the online submission process. Many libraries and community centers have scanning and word processing equipment available for their patrons.

Tell Your Story

Telling Your Peace Corps Story is a great way to assure Americans have a better understanding of the Peace Corps experience. It also helps bring to life the people you’ve known, and the ways in which your experience has changed people’s lives, including your own.

Your story can be up to 1,500 words, and should be about some aspect of your Peace Corps service. One story per contributor. At this time we are accepting stories in English only.

Story Ideas

It may be helpful to use the Peace Corps mission—to promote peace and friendship—as a general guide for the subject matter of your story. You also might want to think about how your story fulfills one or more of the Peace Corps’ three goals:
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Use your Peace Corps journals or diaries to get inspiration for your story. Journals are a good source to jog your memory about a particular place or incident. They also contain details that present a good sense of place and atmosphere.
Look at photos from your service—they often help evoke memories of certain experiences, or details about a particular place and time.
Think about your host community. Was there a moment when you realized that you had been accepted as a member of the community?
Reflect upon your Peace Corps experience and what it meant to your life after your service. What impact did it have on you? Did it open new doors in your career or personal life? What has it meant to you over time?
If your story relates to returning to your Peace Corps site after many years, be sure that it focuses on the site and your work with the host country people. Focus on the impact of your Peace Corps experience on both sides between the time you served and your return.

Editorial Tips

Capture what was unique, surprising, or important about your experience.
Less is more—tell us your tale in 1,500 words or less.
Have fun with it—and feel free to use humor, if it’s appropriate to the subject.
Make it personal—it’s your Peace Corps experience.

Please Note

In order to be published in the digital library, your submission must:

Be sensitive to the privacy concerns of individuals, including host country nationals
Not malign the Peace Corps, or any other group or individual
Not include inflammatory, rude or offensive language or content
Not include links to or URLs for Internet sites
Not be used to promote products or services
Not include any personal identifying information such as Social Security numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses or street addresses.

Peace Corps reserves the right to edit or reject submissions to the digital library.

Once you have completed your story, save it as a .doc, .txt or .rtf file and upload it using the online submission form.

Peace Corps