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Minutes from Paul's 1st Conference Call from Ginger Tissier
Peace Corps General Info
The Peace Corps traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then Senator John F. Kennedy challenged students at the University of Michiganto serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship. Since that time, more than 190,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in 139 host countries to work on issues ranging from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation.
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We have 28 volunteers in the Girls' Empowerment and Education sector, which oversee the day-to-day operations of 22 Girls' Mentoring Centers (GMC), which serve over 1000 female secondary school students across the country. The GMC initiative is quite specific to Peace Corps Mauritania and is a cornerstone in our approach to supporting girls' education and schooling in a country where 50% of the girls enrolled in the first grade will not make it to the seventh (or the first year of secondary school) and only 73 girls out of 1000 will get a diploma enabling them to secure decent employment. Girls' retention and graduation rates in secondary and higher education represent a serious challenge for the Government of Mauritania.
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Information about Mauritania
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania gained independence from French colonial powers in 1960. The country is over 1 million km2 (roughly the size of California and Texas combined), with a population of approximately 3.3 million people. Two-thirds of the country is Saharan Desert. The majority of the population lives concentrated in the capital city, a large port (supports fishing and mining activities) in the north, and in the Senegal River Valley region in the south. Ethnic groups include the White Moors, Black Moors, Halpulaar, Soninké, and Wolof. Half of the population still depends on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood, even though many of the nomads and subsistence farmers were forced into the cities by recurrent droughts in the 1970s and 1980s.