Peace Corps volunteers have found new ways to share their stories, art, and ideas in the digital world. PCV-run publications have moved from print to online platforms, but they’re still completely created and managed by volunteers. This post is part of a series that looks at these digital publications, starting with PeaceWorks published by the volunteers serving in Morocco. We’ll explore how it works, the effort that goes into making it, and why it’s all worth it—for the team behind it and the PCVs who get to share their voices.
Table of Contents
- PeaceWorks Through the Years
- Collaboration, Creativity, and Continuity
- Creating a PCV-Run Magazine Takes Planning and Passion
- Connect with Us and Start Your Own Project
PeaceWorks Through the Years
Can you tell more about the history of Peace Works?
PeaceWorks as we know it today began in 2015, established by volunteers in Morocco as a platform to express their art, experiences, and ideas. The actual name can be dated back to the ‘80s, when PeaceWorks existed as a newsletter. The change to an art magazine happened, at least totally and permanently, in 2015. As a digital art and literary magazine by and for volunteers, PeaceWorks published biannual editions, one in the spring and one in the fall, from its inception to spring 2020.
The suspension of in-country service during the pandemic disrupted the publication of the magazine as well, although the spirit and concept of PeaceWorks were maintained by hardworking PCVs who shared the completed edition and preserved the initial website.
How was restarting after the pandemic?
When Staj 102 returned to Morocco as the first in-service volunteers in 2022, they also returned with the same hopes of maintaining a creative outlet, by volunteers, for volunteers. A handful of meetings and presentations, a few searches for nearly-lost passwords, an ounce of restructuring, and a multimedia campaign to contact PCVs who worked on previous editions later, the new editorial team announced the continuation of PeaceWorks in 2024 and that submissions for the next Fall edition had opened.
Collaboration, Creativity, and Continuity
Right now, how is Peace Works run?
PeaceWorks is run as a collaborative working group, fulfilling the desire to maintain a platform by and for volunteers for self-expression. Entirely managed, edited, and published by the editorial board, which is comprised entirely of volunteers, PeaceWorks maintains important separation from Peace Corps’ and Moroccan bureaucracy.
There are no official positions; instead, each member of the editorial team chooses to work on what they are most passionate about. Self-expression, comfort and vulnerability, identity, creativity, and inclusivity are at the core of how PeaceWorks is run. The editorial council is composed of four established members who worked on the Fall 2024 edition, along with three new members recently recruited from Staj 104.
Who is your audience?
The primary base of our audience is the volunteers of Peace Corps Morocco, along with their friends and family. Published additions are made available to all Morocco PCVs as downloadable files. If you’re interested in reading the magazine, send us a message on Instagram (@peaceworksmorocco) and we’ll send it to you!
Who picks the writers?
The contributors, both literary and visual, are submissions by PCVs and RPCVs, selected by the editorial committee. Selected submissions are not based on “quality” or preference, but focused more on quantity; we want to make sure everyone finds their voice through the magazine.
How are editors chosen?
Editors are also chosen by the editorial team. In January, any volunteers of the new staj (cohort) can submit applications to PeaceWorks to become a member of the editorial team. We look at relevant experiences in art media, possible ideas and future projects they want to support, and why they want to be a part of the editorial team.
Passing the Torch Between Volunteer Cohorts
As PeaceWorks had just restarted, it was important for us to make sure the continuity of PeaceWorks between stajs would remain smooth and simple. Currently, three of the four senior members are of Staj 103 (arrived in 2023) while one senior member is Staj 102 (arrived in 2022). We felt it was best to maintain the three-persons-from-each-staj structure, and therefore the junior members are three from Staj 104 (arrived in 2024). There’s no distinction between members other than the different stajs; senior and junior roles are only used in this writing to make clear when members were invited to the PeaceWorks editorial team.
Creating a PCV-Run Magazine Takes Planning and Passion
Getting Started
If I’m a PCV, how would I even go about starting a PCV publication like Peace Works in my country?
Focus on organizing a dedicated, smaller group of editors who can focus a good month or so on creating the final product of your work.
Work to establish boundaries and a good work culture with staff. Even if you want to maintain a separate oversight and independence from the Peace Corps bureaucracy, they are important resources to look to for support and advice.
The actual work schedule for your publication of choice will vary significantly over the months. There are a lot of months where there is very little to do, where you are just accepting submissions, doing initial reviews of the material, and forming ideas of where you might want to take that specific edition.
And there will be a month or two when you’ll be booked with work, preparing, writing, editing, reviewing, and publishing. You’ll find yourself repeating this work over and over again, day in and day out, adapting and adjusting your ideas until you’re published and ready to share your work. Don’t find yourself too stressed out about the flowing nature and intensity of work, as things will pick up and slow down naturally.
Deadlines, priorities, and timelines
It’s important to set deadlines, priorities, and timelines, so you are moving towards the end product. Sometimes it feels easier to just wing it, but putting in prep work beforehand and having an organized schedule will help tremendously in making sure your team keeps moving forward.
Deadlines are valuable to both the editors, to make sure products are completed and timely, as well as to those who submit works, so they have solid timelines for when they can see their hard work published. As PeaceWorks has experienced, there’s always so much and more that you want to include, to create, to provide. There are so many wonderful creative ideas, and to be the best editorial team possible, understanding what’s possible in the moment is extremely important. Be sure to prioritize what can be your best work, what is achievable even if you might not see the full outline immediately.
It’s great to dream when creating such a platform, and with these dreams comes effective priorities to make sure these dreams become reality, one by one. Scheduling all of these priorities, deadlines, and projects can be quite the task itself, but an overall time frame is highly valuable. Keep your priorities and deadlines on track with reasonable timelines. Things will definitely be delayed, postponed, or even moved up, so being flexible with your timeline is important, but stay steady; hard work will pay off.
Download your copy of the Spring 2025 issue “Purpose” by PeaceWorks – for volunteers by volunteers.
Past Editions are availabel HERE back to 2015.
And listen to their podcast, too!!!
Connect with Us and Start Your Own Project
Any tips or advice? Any ways you would do it differently now? Is it worth all the work?
Is it all worth the work? Absolutely, just look at our final product!
Working on PeaceWorks has been worth all the work, both for the experience of creating a printed and online magazine that we are all very proud of, but also for the journey that it took to get there. It was incredibly rewarding to hear the response from PCVs who got evacuated during Covid-19 who wanted to submit their works to our magazine, and these were some of the most impactful to us.
It’s also worth the work to be able to work on an amazing team with other PCVs who are all dedicated to working on this project together, and for the opportunity to get to know them better and become friends.
If you have any questions regarding how we do things over here in Morocco, please feel free to reach out to us at @peaceworksmorocco on Instagram or email us at peaceworks.morocco@gmail.com!
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Moroccan Government.
