Interview with Bohdan Yarema, November 9, 2022

Interview Summary

Bohdan Yarema, Peace Corps Host Country National, Counterpart (1997-1999); Peace Corps Staff (Regional Manager: 2003-2007; Youth Development Lead Specialist: 2014-2017). Bohdan Yarema first came to know about the Peace Corps as a counterpart to a TEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language) volunteer in the late 1990s. His complex family history, interest in cross-cultural studies, and experience of working with and getting to know Peace Corps volunteers informed his decision to apply for the position of a Peace Corps Regional Manager after spending a year at Iowa State University as a Visiting Scholar. In his interview, Bohdan explains how he came to respect the Peace Corps program and the volunteers whom he met and worked with through his different professional roles. He compares Peace Corps volunteers and their ability to impact communities to other development organizations which often fall short of catalyzing a sustainable change through their brief programmatic interventions. He also recounts poignant moments in Ukraine’s recent history which not only impacted the Peace Corps program in various ways, but also culminated into the Russian military aggression in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps volunteers Ukraine Peace Corps staff regional manager counterpart projects youth development lead specialist youth development agency community Ternopil war internally displaced people (IDPs) counterpart Iowa State University undergraduate Applied Linguistics migrant camps refugee camps Europe Russians Nazis Soviet Union Soviets Chicago maternal grandmother American forces Iron Curtain parents orphan KGB forced deportation anthropologist faculty international development Internet cafe Peace Corps office vacancies soviet mentality demoted revolutions Zhytomyr Lviv Rivne Volyn Ivano-Frankivsk Zakarpattia Chernivtsi Cherkasy Khmelnytskyi Economic Community Development Education Fulbright PDM mentor project design and management asset-based development United Nations (UN) UN Officer Complexity Science and Systems Thinking needs assessment Orange Revolution Maidan and Euromaidan Ministry of Youth and Sports Ministry of Education US foreign policy diplomatic mission Viktor Yanukoych specialist and generalist debate UNICEF Open World Program Library of Congress Ervin Laslo Milton Bennett evaluation Kremenchuk, Poltava consolidation point Dnipro Crimea Donetsk Kramatorsk Russian troops insurrection Peace Corps Response Save the Children reverse culture shock Masters of Arts in Global Leadership Royal Roads University Victoria, British Columbia

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.