Interview with Emily Ruhm, August 5, 2020
Project: Peace Corps: COVID-19 Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers Oral History Project
Interview Summary
Emily Ruhm served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal from September 2019 until she was evacuated because of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. She discusses joining the Peace Corps to get grassroots experience that would inform her policy-level international development career. Ruhm discusses her extensive pre-Peace Corps international experience including growing up in the Middle East and other countries as the child of U.S. government officials and the problems this caused in being accepted into the Peace Corps; teaching English in China; and international development-focused internships and jobs. She discusses her work with women as an urban agriculture extension agent in Ranerou and the importance of cultural exchanges with these women. She recounts her evacuation story, and her return to the U.S., her U.N. job and using non-competitive eligibility to land a job with the Millennium Challenge Corporation. She concludes with thoughts about improving the Peace Corps experience.Interview Accession
Interviewee Name
Interviewer Name
Interview Date
Interview Keyword
Peace Corps Volunteer Job: Agriculture Senegal (Country of service) Agriculture Education 2019-2020 (Date of service) Peace Corps training Peace Corps goals Peace Corps as a career builder Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteer (EPCV) Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Peace Corps (U.S.)--2020-Evacuation #covid19Interview LC Subject
Peace Corps (U.S.) Peace Corps (U.S.)--Senegal COVID-19 (Disease) Senegal Acculturation Communication and culture Culture shock Culture Intercultural communication Interpersonal communication and culture Interpersonal relations and culture Language and culture Language and languages Travel Voluntarism VolunteersInterview Rights
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Ruhm, Emily Interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. 05 Aug. 2020. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
Ruhm, E. (2020, August 05). Interview by E. Ganzglass. Peace Corps: COVID-19 Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.
Ruhm, Emily, interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. August 05, 2020, Peace Corps: COVID-19 Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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