2/17/09 The Sectors: Environment

As part of my ongoing, every-other-day series on Peace Corps, I'm going to discuss each of the four sectors in which PCVs serve, here in Morocco: Youth Development, Small Business Development, Health, and Environment. They are four of the five most-populous sectors in all of Peace Corps, so this should be useful information for Peace Corps applicants, regardless of which country or region they're hoping for. Today, I'll focus on Environment.

Last, but absolutely not least, we come to my sector. Environment Volunteers work on a wide range of issues, focused around the theme of "Environmental Education". This could be formal education, working with groups of students; or informal education in schools, such as starting an "EE Club"; or having conversations with shopkeepers that lead to them using fewer plastic bags; or teaching people how to build more-efficient woodstoves so they burn fewer trees; or planting trees and explaining their many benefits; or putting on an Earth Day festival; or anything else you can think of.

Environment Volunteers have the least-direct supervision of the sectors, and are most responsible for creating their own work. If you thrive in this kind of environment, this may be a good fit. If you like directed projects and to-do lists and external guidance, you may struggle as an Environment Volunteer. Also, because we work in Parks and other sites of biological or ecological interest, we tend to be remote. Most of us are at least an hour from the nearest decent-sized city. I'm four hours away from mine, which I think is the record. (I believe I also have the coldest and highest-elevation site. Lucky me! PCVs, if you think you can challenge me on either of these, bring it on...)