Peace Corps volunteers of decades past return to Korea for Revisit program

Christy Gavitt, lower left, poses with her host family near Onyang, modern-day Asan, South Chungcheong Province, 1975. She returned to Korea last week for the Peace Corps Revisit program this month. Courtesy of Christy Gavitt

By Jon Dunbar

Dozens of Americans are returning to Korea this month, decades after they first came here to do volunteer work with the Peace Corps. Around 50 participants including Peace Corps Korea volunteers and their family members will be here for the Peace Corps Revisit program, organized by the Korea Foundation with funds from the National Assembly.

They are among the approximately 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers who served here between 1966 and 1981, during which time they lent development assistance primarily in English education in middle schools and universities, and health education and care, especially for patients of tuberculosis and leprosy.

The returning participants had been posted across the country to schools, health care facilities and an orphanage for mixed-race children.

“Most volunteers have not returned to Korea since their service 42 to 56 years ago,” said Christy Gavitt, a board member of Friends of Korea, a U.S.-based NGO founded by former volunteers who served in Korea. “During the time of the volunteers’ service, the foundation of Korea’s dramatic economic transformation occurred.”

A full week of activities is planned for the Revisit participants from Oct. 21 to 28. They will receive briefings on relevant topics such as Korea-U.S. relations and the country’s education system, and visit sites of interest including the newly open to the public Cheong Wa Dae, Donuimun Museum Village and Changdeok Palace. They will also pay visits to Hankuk Woojin School, a special school for physically challenged students, and Immanuel House, a home for the disabled.

Some of the participants will return to the sites where they were originally posted decades ago, to see what they are like now and reconnect with people from those days. “Thanks to an enormous amount of research conducted in advance by the Korea Foundation, they manage to identify the volunteers’ former Korean colleagues and friends made during their Peace Corps service,” said Gavitt, who spent 1974 to 1976 in Korea teaching English at Oncheon Middle School in an area that has since become Asan, South Chungcheong Province. “As you can imagine, this two-day site visit has proved to be a highly emotional experience.”

David Lee Dolinger, a former Peace Corps volunteer, visits a health center in Yeongam, South Gyeongsang Province, during a Revisit program in 2019. Dolinger worked at the center in 1980, until the Gwangju Massacre disrupted his stay. The book "Called by Another Name" details his experiences. Courtesy of Korea Foundation

The last Revisit held in Korea was in September 2022, after a few years with no visits due to the pandemic. Before that, the previous one was in 2019.

In addition, Peace Corps Korea volunteers have been organizing their own reunions stateside since 2009, with the latest one held last year in Washington.

“No other Peace Corps recipient country has ever invited volunteers to return to their country of service, let alone provide all expenses during the revisit,” Gavitt said. “All of the Peace Corps Volunteers have been touched by this gesture of gratitude from the Korean government and are reminded of the profound impact that those years of service had on their lives.”

Peace Corps volunteers visit Cheong Wa Dae, newly opened to the public, during a revisit program in 2022. Courtesy of Korea Foundation

"Peace Corps Korea Volunteers ... learned about resilience during their service in health centers when with their co-workers they walked sometimes for miles to give comfort to an elderly person or medicine to a sick child; the education volunteers understood the desire of the disabled student eager to learn despite their disability or the student who came to school each day in a hand-me-down uniform and an empty stomach ― both resilient, both overcoming incredible difficulties," Friends of Korea Vice President Jim Mayer, who had been country director of Peace Corps Korea from 1978 to 1981, said in a prepared statement shared with The Korea Times. "We are here to simply say thank you. Thank you for the valuable lessons each of us learned from you, the Korean people and the cherished experiences that became a part of our own DNA from our service in Korea."

Visit friendsofkorea.net for more information.

On Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m., Gavitt will also give a talk, titled "Reflections on providing aid in North Korea and other authoritarian settings," for Royal Asiatic Society Korea at KOTE in Insa-dong about her consultancy work done in the late 1990s in North Korea. Entry costs 10,000 won, or 5,000 won for students, and is free for RAS Korea members.