Peace Corps Making a Difference Again in Sierra Leone

February 28, 2011

Amanda Pease, a science teacher, is one of the first volunteers to work in Sierra Leone in over a decade

Amanda Pease is one of the first Peace Corps volunteers to work in Sierra Leone in over a decade. She has been teaching science now for six months at St. Joseph’s, a high school in the east of the country.

For Pease, living in the roadside village of Blama, a day’s drive from the capital, Freetown, is a far cry from her coastal hometown of San Diego, California. It is also her first time to Africa.

Pease decided to sign up for a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer after finishing a degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles.

"I was trying to decide between going the academic route and doing a postdoctoral degree and go into industry and then I had been doing some volunteer work and the idea was always kind of floating around," Pease said. "There was kind of an option number three on the side, and as time went on and I thought about it more and more, I was so much more excited about that option. Just the idea of trying to give an opportunity to someone who would not maybe have it."

There are 37 Peace Corps members serving in rural schools across the country. Joel Wallach, co-director for Peace Corps here, says they have a long history in Sierra Leone.