New federal program encourages short-term overseas volunteers

Published: 2003-10-01

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Kathleen Hartmann would like more medical professionals to try what she did recently -- she spent 14 months at a Catholic hospital in Swaziland, primarily working with HIV/AIDS victims. Under an executive order signed by President Bush Sept. 25, federal agencies that operate foreign aid programs are being instructed to make more efforts to see that Hartmann, a registered nurse from New York, gets her wish. The Volunteers for Prosperity program created by the executive order will set up infrastructure in several different federal agencies to make it easy for would-be volunteers to arrange overseas stays of a few weeks or months when their skills can be put to use in developing countries. At a Sept. 29 press conference in Washington, Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said his office would have primary responsibility for coordinating the program, which will operate initially in the departments of State, Commerce and Health and Human Services, in addition to his agency.

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