Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program

Lee has served in Central America as a Peace Corps volunteer twice—though her service was cut short both times, first because of political instability in Nicaragua, then because of COVID-19 while serving in Guatemala. When she returned to the U.S. in March 2020 at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, “I saw how public health was being undercut and how certain populations were being hurt,” she says. That’s when she decided to apply to graduate school.

“Heller is one of the few institutions where I saw an equal marriage of hard, corporate skills but also social justice values. I could learn to manage people and practice health equity in the same school.”

“Shirley Chisholm said, ‘Service is the rent you pay to live on earth.’ I want to support communities that are disenfranchised, under-resourced, taken advantage of—the people experiencing cyclical poverty and hunger. We have come too far for people to still suffer from things they don’t have to.”

That’s why Havercome has dedicated her life to service, from distributing canned goods and school materials in her grandmother’s home country of Guyana as a child, to working for AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps after graduating from college.

Stoever served in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua. It was one of the few countries in the Peace Corps network that welcomed same sex couples. After hesitating throughout training, she decided to come out, and she stepped up to lead LGBT Safe Zone Trainings.

“Through the Safe Zone trainings, it was a powerful tool to change minds. I blogged about the trainings on the official Peace Corps site, and a lot of queer volunteers would read it and thank me for sharing.”

Shinagawa found Heller through the Peace Corps program website. “I was looking specifically for programs that focus on advancing social justice as part of their curriculum. I’ve always been a community organizer at heart. That’s my passion, and I’ve always known my interest was in reproductive health and reproductive justice, which is part of the reason why I decided to join the Peace Corps.” She says her Peace Corps experience also helped expose her to the role of direct service organizations, as part of her role included facilitating vaccinations and immunizations at a local health clinic. 

“As cliché as it sounds, I’ve always been interested in service,” says Herrera, who was sent to Lesotho, a tiny country in Southern Africa, as a community health volunteer. He worked with a local clinic and schools on a program to target HIV-positive youth, since Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, and offered nutrition workshops and monitored malnourishment rates in the village.

At Heller, he’s been thrilled to find a welcoming community of RPCVs. “It’s hard to explain the bond that all the volunteers have. There’s a big readjustment when you come back, and it’s nice to find everyone.”

“To see social work in a developing country and have a different lens and approach, I learned again how much I appreciated understanding the bigger picture of macro systems of care,” says Evans, who served in Mongolia for two years. There, she met a Heller alumna, who recommended Heller to Evans as she started to think about pursuing a doctoral degree. As she learned about Heller’s health policy expertise and tight-knit community of returned Peace Corps volunteers, she decided it would be an ideal fit.

The Peace Corps sent Anzoategui to Honduras to work on a property tax system, female entrepreneurship and community banking.

“Throughout my time there, I saw constantly the interaction between violence prevention and conflict and peacebuilding and development. That was a huge part of why I chose Heller, where I could do the dual degree in sustainable international development and coexistence and conflict to make those linkages.”