Building Bridges: Women in the Peace Corps with RPCV Jessica

This Women’s History Month, we’re sharing stories in our ‘Building Bridges‘ series about women in the Peace Corps who made a big difference by helping others. Today, we’re hearing from Jessica Estabine, who volunteered in Mali from 2011-2012, then Burkino Faso from 2012-14. Jessica will tell us why she joined and what makes women special in the Peace Corps.

Table of Contents

• Introduction:
• Motivation and Inspiration:
• Service Experience:
• Challenges and Triumphs:
• Empowerment, Impact, Cultural Exchange:
• Women’s Empowerment Initiatives:
• Personal Growth:
• Advice for Aspiring Volunteers:

Introduction:

1. Can you please introduce yourself and share why you decided to join the Peace Corps?

My name is Jessica Estabine and I served in Mali (2011-2012) and Burkina Faso (2012-2014) as a health education volunteer. I first heard about the Peace Corps while attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was in the process of completing a humanities in medicine program, majoring in International Studies and French while taking all the prerequisites for medical school. 

I was always interested in traveling, learning about other cultures, and volunteering in my community and abroad. My original goal was medical mission work but later realized medicine was not the best fit for me and there were other ways to directly help those in need. After talking with an RPCV friend and hearing from a Peace Corps recruiter, I knew the Peace Corps would be a great fit.

Motivation and Inspiration:

2. What inspired you to become a Peace Corps volunteer?

While in college I had the opportunity to study abroad in France for a semester and was a part of several service trips to Mexico. From these experiences, I knew I still had much to learn from the world. The more I learned about the Peace Corps mission, it seemed like it would be the best on-the-ground experience to work directly with a community and learn about a place, and its people and to further develop my language skills. 

One person who inspired me to join the Peace Corps was my college friend Steph. She did not serve in the Peace Corps but taught for a year in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Her time there was life-changing, full of ups and downs, but so rewarding. The Peace Corps seemed like it would be an extended version of her experience.

Service Experience:

3. Describe your experience and the type of projects you worked on? How did your gender impact your service?

Short Service in Mali

My Peace Corps Service in Mali was short-lived as the program was pulled out after a coup d’etat in April 2012. I was able to go through training and spent about 3 months in my assigned village called Yolo (Not a joke…this was around the time the Drake song came out and that phrase really took off haha). I came back to the U.S. and was hoping to be able to go back to Mali. Unfortunately, the situation never improved enough for the Peace Corps to bring volunteers back. 

Starting New in Burkina Faso

I was able to start a new period of service right next door in Burkina Faso. Mali and Burkina Faso shared some of the same languages and people groups. Thankfully the local language I learned in Mali (Bambara) was almost the same as the language used in my village Yendere in Burkina Faso (Jula/Dioula). My French background also helped immensely since it is the national language of Burkina Faso.

Serving as a Community Health Volunteer

I served as a community health volunteer and was partnered with a community health clinic and their local community health outreach group. Originally, the person that was recommended to serve as my counterpart was a man who was the head of the community health group. However, he often would not show up to meetings we had scheduled and something just seemed off. 

I ended up befriending a village midwife, Marie Claire, who was also a part of the community health group. With there now being a clinic to deliver in, midwives change roles to community health educators. Together we worked on malaria prevention campaigns, child nutrition and hygiene. I also started a girls club at the elementary school and worked with teachers on small community health projects.

Camp G2LOW Project

Some of my favorite projects were youth camps for middle schoolers where I partnered with other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and community members. We had high schoolers serving as counselors for these camps, which really got everyone involved with the goal of this being something that could be carried out after a PCV was gone. We followed the Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) model, but changed it to G2LOW (Guys and Girls Leading Our World). We thought if we really wanted to bring about gender equality in these communities, the women and men would both need to be learning and working together.

Challenges and Triumphs:

4. What challenges did you face during your service, especially as a woman?

There was a bit of tension that occurred since I picked a woman (Marie Claire) counterpart over a man. However, many people in the community supported the decision, along with most of the nursing staff at the clinic. Marie Claire was a vital resource throughout my service and was highly respected by many in the community. She became like family. I found out towards the end of my service that part of the tension was not just because she was a woman, but there was an unresolved feud. The disagreement arose from the community being split over how to control a cashew farm left by an NGO.

Peace Corps Volunteers were often not categorized into stereotypical gender norms but were kind of their gender. However, this did not stop people in the community from questioning why I was still single or why I did not have kids yet. I would get proposed to almost daily. Our community was made up of Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics with a little bit of animism thrown into them all. Polygamy was legal in Burkina Faso for those practicing Islam, with some men taking up to 3 or 4 wives, though it was not as common in the cities. To ward off the proposals, I would jokingly say to the man that he could be my second husband. The idea of a woman having more than one husband was so shocking that he would quickly rescind his proposal.

Empowerment, Impact, Cultural Exchange:

5. How did your experience as a female volunteer with the Peace Corps influence the community and support women?

How to Measure Impact?

It is difficult to truly know the impact that one has on others. Many volunteers would also say they benefited more from their time in their host countries than they were able to give back. I tried my best to be a positive influence and encourage the girls and women in my community. This happened through the lessons at our youth camps, the girls club, and through individual conversations. 

I think the biggest impact was being able to take girls to different camps that were in different towns. Many had never left their villages. They were able to get to know other kids and learn different lessons on career options, teamwork, gender equality, and much more. I was also able to share my experiences with them about going to college and waiting to get married and have kids.

Empowering Women Through Seminars and Training

Peace Corps often holds seminars where you can bring community members to learn skills to bring back to their community, such as how to use soccer to teach youth about HIV prevention. Most of the time I chose women from my community to come to these seminars as they are not given as many opportunities to get out of their villages and to take on a leadership role. Even though I felt accepted by my community, it is always important to remember that our goal as volunteers is not to carry out projects on our own but to empower positive change-makers in the community. 

Working with women in the community allowed us to reach more community members as women are the primary caretakers of the family. I spoke one of the local languages, but having women counterparts allowed for translation to reach others I would have otherwise not been able to speak with. Working with a counterpart also created trust and made community members more likely to be open to whatever health message we were conveying. 

Women’s Empowerment Initiatives:

6. Were there specific projects related to women’s empowerment that you were involved in?

As I mentioned above, I teamed up with other Peace Corps Volunteers and host country nationals to hold Camp G2LOW, a leadership camp for middle school students. We had about 60 kids at each camp. The community was very supportive, but I am not sure some of the parents fully grasped what was being taught at the camps. We did not have pushback on the women’s empowerment and gender equality aspect, but some parents were not thrilled that we had talked to kids about safe sex and HIV prevention.

Personal Growth:

7. In what ways did your Peace Corps service contribute to your personal and professional growth?

Public speaking was never my favorite and being a health education volunteer forced me out of my comfort zone. Here I was, speaking in front of community members in my second and third language. We were given health outcomes to achieve that were put together by the Burkinabe Ministry of Health and Peace Corps, but it was up to me to work with the community to tackle these issues. There was no set curriculum. Luckily PCVs did start to keep more of a record of resources so we did not have to keep reinventing the wheel, but often you were on your own.

Lessons Learned Continue Long after Service

When I got back to the States, I continued my public service by working for the Social Security Administration and now United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. My Peace Corps service not only gave me great responses to interview questions, but it also played a role in my daily workday. My service made me even more empathetic and open-minded, allowing me to better serve customers. Not to mention my French came in handy with translating documents and speaking with immigrants who were not as comfortable with English or did not know it at all. 

As far as my perception of women’s rights, I became an advocate for reproductive rights because of my service. Abortion is illegal in Burkina Faso and some PCVs personally knew Burkinabe women who died from trying to end a pregnancy. It was heartbreaking and could have been prevented if these women had access to the health care they needed.

Advice for Aspiring Volunteers:

8. What advice would you give to other women considering joining the Peace Corps?

Peace Corps is tough, but it truly is a life-changing experience. If you are questioning going because of safety, remember the same rules you would apply here in the States, would apply in another country. Being immersed in your community and getting to know your neighbors is a safety net and people will watch out for you. Being in a place for two years may seem long, but it does fly by. I do not know of another program that will give you this kind of grassroots development experience. 

And when you return to the States, the experience does not leave you. You realize that even if we are from completely different countries, we are all more alike than different. I kept a blog during my service and the quotation at the top from Mark Twain (?) still rings true today: 

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream Discover.

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The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or any of the host governments mentioned.