Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-088
Charles F. (Chic) Dambach served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1967 to 1969 in a community development program. Dambach talks about leading a strike when two of his fellow volunteers were about to be deselected during training. One Peace Corps trainer, Sam Farr, was fired because he opposed the deselection, and the volunteers went on strike in support of Farr and their trainee colleagues. (The strike was successful. Farr later became a U.S. Representative and a staunch supporter of the Peace Corps.) In Colombia, Dambach lived and worked in the Albornoz barrio on the outskirts of Cartagena. He discusses the work he did with the barrio's squatters to get the government to open a school to serve this community, and how he helped the villagers organize fishing cooperatives and improve their fishing practices. In addition, Dambach discusses the influence that Peace Corps service had on his career as community organizer and advocate for dialogue and non-violent solutions to conflicts. In this regard, he talks about his term as director of the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers from 1992 to 1999 (now called the National Peace Corps Association), and the program he started to provide teachers with resource materials to use in promoting intercultural understanding. Dambach also created the Emergency Response Network of RPCVs and staff to work on conflict resolution and crises in the countries in which they served; this now operates as Peace Corps Response. In addition, he discusses his conflict resolution activities in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Congo as well as his role in founding the Alliance for Peace Building. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, May 31, 2019. 1 digital audio file.