Amber Ray ’07

It was in her junior year’s African Ecology and Development class at UCLA that Amber Ray ’07 was bitten by the Peace Corps bug.  Her professor had arranged for two Peace Corps volunteers to speak to the class about their experience and life in Africa. By the time the class ended, Ray knew the Peace Corps had a place in her future.

After graduation, she followed through on the seed planted in that class. She wound up as a community health department volunteer in a small village in the interior of South America’s Suriname, where she works on a drinking water project to harvests rain water. She lives in a hot humid rain forest community with no running water and just sporadic electricity. She bathes in the river along with the 600 villagers and visits the nearest city every two months or so to check her e-mail and communicate with friends back home.

And she loves it.

The people Ray works with are descended from escaped slaves brought over by the Dutch from West Africa. Their need for clean drinking water year round is being addressed in a project that places large covered tanks (informally known as “duro” tanks) to catch runoff water from rooftops. The tanks are commonly used in Africa.

The villagers are contributing the labor for loading and unloading all the materials; Ray is raising funds through a website for other expenses. 

The village decided to distribute the tanks by section (a piece of the village where a few families live together) and each of the 36 sections will be responsible for donating the labor and maintenance of each water system.  

Ray’s term ends in July and her plans beyond that are uncertain.

“I’ve learned a lot about community development and working internationally,” says the 26-year-old. “My next step is wide open, but I’m sure it will combine those two things.”

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UCLA will celebrate the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary with a series of campus events, an exhibit and a film screening March 2-5. Leading off the week will be “Peace Corps: The Next 50 Years,” a panel discussion at Royce Hall featuring Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams; Frank Mankiewicz, former Latin American regional director; Peace Corps veterans Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth, and Haskell Sears Ward, SEACOM senior vice president; and Francoise Castro ’01, a recent volunteer.

Other events on campus will include the Peace Corps International Festival in Bruin Plaza, a screening of the award-winning documentary, A Small Act (by filmmaker Jennifer Arnold ’92, M.F.A. ’99) and a service project at the West Los Angeles Veterans Home for UCLA students and former Peace Corps volunteers. Visit UCLA’s Peace Corps 50th anniversary website. You can read the personal stories of Peace Corps volunteers and — if you served in the Peace Corps — contribute a story of your own.