CARRIE HESSLER-RADELET: "Safety and security of our volunteers is absolutely our top priority and we are continually looking at this topic and I have to say that in the last few years we have done an amazing amount of work to try to improve both our systems to support volunteers, to ensure confidentiality and to strengthen their preparedness and training."

At the same time, she says a volunteer must be prepared for risks.

CARRIE HESSLER-RADELET: "Honestly I feel quite confident that actually volunteers have never been as safe in the Peace Corps as they are today. I mean I have no qualms in saying that, because our systems are strong. That said, you know, there is risk to serving as a volunteer, you are in remote areas, the medical care isn't what you would expect here in this country."

FAITH LAPIDUS: Matt Francolino is a new volunteer. He spent last summer living much like he will live in the Peace Corps -- in a rural village in West Africa. He had no electricity, but he says it was the best time of his life.

MATT FRANCOLINO: "And I wondered to myself, how is that possible? I didn’t have my cellphone, no computer access, and I realized there were so many more important things that I was looking for in life.”

Last year thirty-seven percent of Peace Corps volunteers were serving in Africa and twenty-four percent in Latin America. The next largest group, twenty-one percent, were serving in Eastern Europe or Central Asia. There are also Peace Corps volunteers in other parts of Asia and the Pacific and in the Caribbean and the Middle East.