What Even Was Bridge Council?

By Matthew Lemay and Catherine Martinez

Due to President Trump’s executive order banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in federal workplaces, Peace Corps Colombia’s Bridge Council disbanded last month.

If you’ve barely heard of Bridge Council, you’re not alone. If you know what we’re about, but not what we do, we understand. To many, it's mysterious, mentioned for ten minutes in PST and alluded to in the occasional staff email.

Bridge Council was created in 2023 to bring volunteers and staff together to design training and implement institutional reforms that address diverse volunteer backgrounds and interactions and promote cross-cultural communication across our organization and in our communities. The goal was to facilitate conversations across Peace Corps Colombia about how we support diversity, strive for equity, and foster environments where all people feel included.

Our core belief is that when individual differences are valued and everyone feels welcome and supported, we thrive as an organization. There’s so much to learn from one another. Volunteers come from so many different parts of the country – carrying with them different backgrounds, understandings, and experiences. At the same time, we recognize that bias – both personal and institutional – can lead to some voices going unheard. Systemic bias and racism can put people at a disadvantage, often leaving their experiences undervalued or unsupported. The Bridge Council aimed to bridge gaps in understanding between people of different backgrounds and highlight how identity shapes service. Strengthening this awareness ultimately helps us work more effectively toward the Peace Corps’ mission of successfully serving our communities, learning from Colombian culture, and reflecting the best of our country’s backgrounds, heritage, and experiences.

Shutting down Bridge Council was difficult for us, as we were finally getting a grip on our identity and mission. But, at the same time, it lit a fire in us – forcing us to reflect on the resistance against public conversations on understanding, inclusion, and equity. It's more important than ever to lift up underrepresented voices and consciously include and consider everyone, not just institutionally but personally. Separating ourselves from the institutional context has helped us double down on the belief that what we’re doing can’t be undertaken just in a closed council. We must invite and welcome everyone to participate in difficult conversations, uplift lesser heard stories, share our experiences to build understanding, and collectively fight for responsive solutions.

What We Did

When Bridge Council first got underway, we decided to conduct a survey of all volunteers to establish a baseline of volunteer experiences and attitudes toward Peace Corps’ approach to DEI. This study helped us identify what volunteers care about most, where to focus our efforts, and which groups within our community feel less seen or supported. From this starting point, we were able to determine volunteers’ general perceptions of Peace Corps’ culture and the actions we’re taking as an organization to make Peace Corps Colombia fertile ground for diverse perspectives and experiences. The survey also helped us realize the unique difficulties facing certain sub-communities, in particular women of color.

We also constantly updated the pre-service training materials related to gender, implicit bias, and the navigation of single stories that involve challenging social assumptions. One of our main goals was to develop materials that help trainees reflect on their own experiences, recognize single stories and biases, and learn to express them. This strategy allows volunteers to learn both from their own reflections and from the experiences of others. Another key part of our efforts was engaging staff with ideas for specific training exercises that would highlight the impact of difference in various contexts, though we often reached impasses where HQ had already prescribed narrow instructions.

What we Imagined

We imagined Bridge Council would become the center hub for the input of various Peace Corps affinity groups. On the institutional reform committee, we hoped to gather data through focus group sessions and volunteer and staff surveys in order to work closely with COSIC and staff to address problems unique to certain communities. Through our focus group sessions, we hoped to create spaces for different communities to discuss their experiences, difficulties, and to share solutions, giving everyone practice in communicating across differences. On the training committee, we imagined constantly engaging staff to update training materials to stay politically aware as social themes evolve. We also hoped to facilitate training on topics to complement the humanitarian nature of our development work.

Where We Stand Now

Bridge Council has shut down, and Peace Corps staff are prohibited from participating in conversations that discuss DEI or addressing the experiences uniquely faced by volunteers of minority backgrounds. While we no longer have institutional support, we remain committed to research, reflection, and the discussion of DEI-related issues and successes within Peace Corps Colombia.

Where We Want to Go

Our vision for the future includes ongoing conversations across the volunteer community – particularly with focus groups we’ve identified as facing more difficult experiences, such as our people of color, women, and the LGBTQ communities. We hope to uncover both successes and areas for improvement while sharing what it’s like to walk in someone else's shoes in this unique context we find ourselves in. We’ve also been working with OÍSTE to discuss how we can continue to use their platform to publish highlights from these conversations – allowing everyone to contribute, learn, and advocate for meaningful organizational change. We want to encourage everyone to speak up and share their voice because that’s how we learn and move forward.

We know everyone is tired and overwhelmed – both with their jobs as volunteers and with the world at large. But we encourage everyone to stay as involved as they can and to recognize that while not everyone’s Peace Corps experience is the same, we all have the shared responsibility of mutual support and encouragement among volunteers. Let’s keep the conversation going and stay actively involved over the course of our service – speaking up, sharing our experiences, and reflecting together on how we can foster diversity in every sense, push for more equitable support, and build a truly inclusive environment.

Survey Analysis

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I0SFqnJcoapC6XBH04_hNK2RkKDDUnUX0xE2VNOCetw/edit?usp=sharing