Carmen Chang ’06

Years in the Peace Corps: 2010-12
Country: Cameroon
Region/City: Bamenda (Northwest Region)

Carmen Chang ’06 first learned about the Peace Corps over a cup of coffee with a member of the Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity chapter at UCLA. “I remember we talked about life after college and how he was working on his application to join the Peace Corps,” says Chang. “I was excited to learn about the program and my love for international travel somehow sparked my interest.”

Chang planned to join the Peace Corps after graduating from UCLA, but due to family circumstances, she decided to wait a few years. Instead, Chang went on to pursue a master’s degree in public administration at George Mason University near Washington, DC. “I wanted a challenge to live in a completely different culture other than my own as a Chinese American,” says Chang. “I was looking to improve my French and learn other languages. When I applied, Francophone African countries were on my list, which included Cameroon.”

Chang ended up serving in Anglophone Cameroon, where she learned Pidgin English. She served as an NGO developer with the community enterprise development program, where she taught organizational development and business classes to local entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations. She engaged in cross-cultural exchanges and successfully executed her Peace Corps Partnership Project - NGO Fair, a two-day networking fair, after many months of fundraising and planning.

“My UCLA experience taught me to expand my curiosities and to think ambitiously,” says Chang. “I carried this mentality in Cameroon during my service and continue to do so.” When Chang was a junior at UCLA at the time, Cameroon basketball players Luc Richard Mbah a Moute ’08 and Alfred Aboya ’09 were on the UCLA Men’s Basketball team, so applying to a country where both her alma mater and her love for basketball could be represented in a different part of the world was compelling to her. “I remember when I first arrived to my stage training village, Bafia, and learned how Mbah a Moute grew up there,” says Chang. “Mbah a Moute is a prince in the village, so when I visited his family compound, it was an amazing experience.”

Since Chang’s return to the states, she served in the federal government as a civil servant at the Peace Corps headquarters office. She also served as an Obama political appointee at the recently renamed U.S. International Development Finance Corporation in Washington, D.C., as well as previous presidential campaigns in different states. Chang is currently involved in the Center for Asian Americans United for Self-Empowerment (CAUSE) network and local democratic clubs. She now works at the California Immigrant Policy Center.