As John Lennon said, “Imagine all the people, living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.”
These familiar lyrics mirror the mission of the Peace Corps, established by President John F. Kennedy to promote world peace and friendship.
Senior Sam Beecher hopes to further this mission when he travels to Zambia, Africa, in February to become one of the more than 210,000 Americans who have worked for the Peace Corps since its establishment in 1961.
“I did a study abroad in New Zealand and got a little taste of travel and experiencing a culture that was different than my own,” Beecher said. “It made me want to immerse myself in a non-western culture and I knew that the Peace Corps really focused on integrating you into the culture and developing the language no matter where you’re at.”
Beecher, a Baldwin City native, will be immersed in a Zambian community for 24 months and will focus on education and agriculture. He said learning a second language, living in a rural area and developing practical skills were the main things that drew him to apply for the program.
Beecher will receive three months of intensive language, cultural and technical training prior to being put in a community where he will start by conducting a community assessment.
“They give you a lot of freedom in terms of what projects you do because you, and the community members are going to know what they need, not Peace Corps administrators,” Beecher said. “So I think that’s another thing that attracted me to the Peace Corps: working with people, not for them.”
Two programs Beecher will be working for are called L.I.F.E. (Linking Income Food and Environment) and G.L.O.W. (Girls Leading Our World) as well as spreading HIV and AIDS awareness in the local schools and working as the extension agent for the Department of Forestry.
“I think he’s perfect for the Peace Corps because he has a personality that makes everyone feel special,” junior Brittany Friedel said. “The people that he works with — he’ll make them feel empowered so they’ll think they can do anything just because Sam thinks they can do it.”
Beecher said Wendi Born, former associate professor of psychology at Baker University, was a professor who really inspired him as well as other Baker students she came into contact with.
“I think meeting people like her gave me the confidence that I could touch peoples’ lives too just by telling them how I felt and that they were special,” Beecher said.
Born said Beecher was in her First Year Experience class as a freshman and stood out because of his thoughtfulness.
“Just from his responses that first semester you could tell he had a genuine appreciation for other human beings,” Born said. “You have to have an open mind and heart to go work with people in another country and you have to be someone who truly sees other people as valuable and Sam does that.”
Beecher said he is excited to travel to Zambia to see what Africa is truly like.
“Here in the west, we have this image of Africans as impoverished and malnourished, but I’m interested in going there to see what the true Africa is like, the one we don’t see the media portray,” Beecher said.
Beecher is also eager to wipe out any stereotypes Africans have of Americans.
“Just as Americans have these false images of Africa, the images they see of America are not representative of all of the people here,” Beecher said. “I am not representative of the whole.”
After his two years in the Peace Corps, Beecher hopes to continue to travel, but also to continue to work with food and educating others.
No matter what he decides to do, Born is certain Beecher will touch the lives of anyone he comes into contact with.
“Sam is a pretty phenomenal human being,” Born said. “I’ve had a small handful of students that made me feel like my work was worth it, and Sam was one of those students.”
