She is helping get Peace Corps moving again after shutdown due to COVID-19
Marquita Rusley was preparing to go overseas to the West African country of Togo so she could teach English there as a Peace Corps volunteer. She was in the middle of the required medical evaluations in March 2020 when COVID-19 put those plans in limbo.
“We didn’t know what COVID was,” said Rusley, a 25-year-old Hollywood resident.
The Peace Corps is a federal agency that sends American volunteers across the world to offer training in English and business skills. The organization had to send home almost 7,000 volunteers in more than 60 countries in a span of two weeks when COVID-19 hit, said spokesman Tamim Choudhury.
Rusley patiently waited for her trip to get the green light.
“It’s March, I’m going in May, so it’ll be over by then,” she thought.
The Peace Corps continued to send her updates,
but she was stuck, not sure whether to continue her education or wait to be dispatched to West Africa.
Now, two years later, Rusley is on her Peace Corps assignment.
She has been in Togo since June 22. She’ll remain there for two years teaching English.
Rusley filled one of the first 40 overseas volunteer posts since the start of the pandemic.
Volunteers must be vaccinated and also stay clear of public transit to
avoid the spread of COVID-19, Choudhury said.
This is Rusley’s third trip overseas as an English teacher. In 2018, she went to Ghana to teach kids with learning disabilities. She taught in Ecuador in 2019.
The next year, she graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in social and natural sciences. During her college years, she volunteered as a Peace Corps ambassador on campus and worked in the Florida Senate and the United
Nations Foundation.
When Rusley tried to go to Togo before the pandemic, her long-term goal was to be involved with public health. During her time waiting out the pandemic, she realized she wanted to focus on education within the publichealth field.
After her two years in Togo, Rusley said she’s hoping to pursue a master’s in public health with the help of the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows program, which gives returning Peace Corps volunteers a chance to pursue a higher degree.
She said she realized how much education interested her after she thought about her time in Ghana and Ecuador.
“I have a younger sister, so as a kid, my parents bought us these math books and reading books just to help us pass time and still educate ourselves. So I always played teacher with her,” she said. “Then, as I grew up, I always helped my younger cousins with their homework and everything, so I think it was always there.”