Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-014
Bonnie Jean Campbell served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Azerbaijan from 2008 to 2010 in a community economic development project. Campbell was one of 15 seniors (age 50+) in her training group and brought many applicable skills from her prior career as a librarian, researcher, and computer educator. After 11 weeks of cultural orientation and intense language study in Sumqayit, Azerbaijan, Campbell was assigned to Ganja where she worked with administrators in a vocational training center where a quarter of the students were internally displaced people (IDP) from the border conflict with Armenia. Campbell helped develop management practices through focus groups, strategic planning, accounting, and grant writing. She discusses the personal friendships that developed with her home stay family and her impact on the lives of two young people. Being outside the U.S. while listening to President Obama's inauguration speech left a lasting impression. Campbell further reflects on the difficulty she had leaving Azerbaijan and how the Peace Corps experience radically changed her life by opening her eyes to the world beyond her home town of Port Huron, Michigan. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, August 24, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).