Africa Region: Then and Now

Looking to get reconnected with your country of service? Most RPCVs stay engaged with their host country long after their Peace Corps service has ended. Although the suspension of operations at all posts in March 2020 made contact with host communities difficult, most posts are now back up and running. How have the posts in the Africa regions begun to welcome back Volunteers? How many Volunteers are currently serving, in what programs, and what is new since the evacuation? The event was recorded July 11, 2024.

Speakers

Sherene (pronounced “Shed-en”) is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served with PC/The Gambia as a Sustainable Community Gardening and Agroforestry Agriculture Facilitator. Sherene has thirteen years of experience in the nonprofit executive management capacity in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, and childhood sexual assault prevention. She feels fortunate to have had a career that has encompassed being the Director of Operations of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, as well as helping to provide program administration of 72 Children’s Advocacy Centers across Texas, and starting an organizational wellness and executive consultancy organization to assist companies unlearn in equitable internal practices, diversify hiring pools, and shift internal leadership culture and awareness to proactively respond to the realities of systemic racism, racial battle fatigue, and community trauma employees navigate on an ongoing basis. At the core of Sherene’s values is the desire to elevate processes and teams in an equitable way that is rooted in being people first.

Kimberly Will joined the Africa Region as the Chief of Operations in November 2023. Kimberly brings more than 20 years of federal experience working on behalf of National Service and Peace Corps programming. She most recently served as the Director of Programming & Training with Peace Corps/Eswatini. Kimberly’s commitment to service started as an AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps Member, (first cohort 1994-95) in Denver, Colorado. Later she joined Peace Corps as a Volunteer in Jamaica (1998-2000), working with Jamaica AIDS Support in their small-business project. Prior to coming to Peace Corps, Kimberly worked for 14 years for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) (renamed AmeriCorps in 2021), serving first as the Arizona State Program Specialist and later as the State Director of Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma. In 2018-19 Kimberly served as a Senior Advisor to AmeriCorps VISTA, working with leadership to enhance the operational structure for the AmeriCorps VISTA Program. Throughout her career with CNCS, Kimberly served as an agency lead in collaborating, training, and monitoring tribal AmeriCorps VISTA and Senior Corps grantees.

Kimberly’s professional experience also includes serving as the Community Development Coordinator with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico. Kimberly holds a Master of Executive Leadership from Champlain College and a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies/Women’s Studies from the University of Northern Iowa. Kimberly is a hobbyist photographer, avid hiker, and overall nature lover!

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