Episodes

Join us at the Thanksgiving table when Aunt Deb brings both her green jello mold (the celery is a must) and, of course, her dubious questions. Over four hearty courses, she has four barbed questions--for former USAID veteran ...

As a young man, Aaron Williams challenged the norms of his peers by aspiring to see beyond his neighborhood and become a Peace Corps volunteer. It was something they did not see coming. But then, Aaron likely even surprised h...

MaryAnn Shank is a writer and former teacher who, despite growing up surrounded by the birth of Silicon Valley, found her deepest inspiration among the women of Somalia, half a world away. She has been celebrating strong and ...

This is less a bonus episode than it is a bookend. (We recommend you start with Episode #13.) Last time around, Skip Waskin barely survived his first-ever USAID assignment in then-Zaire. Flash forward, and he is now leading U...

Skip Waskin's long career at USAID involved leading some of the Agency's largest and most important missions, including Russia and Afghanistan. But these illustrious roles almost eluded him — because he almost didn't make it ...

Steve Herman had a notion — already as a child, discovering the magical "SW" button on his grandmother's radio — that broadcasting somehow lay in his future. He began his career early and settled into a long tenure as a forei...

Reverend Jennifer Butler sensed as a young person that she might need to leave her community and her known world in order to find herself. She did. And then she did. And in finding herself, she has also found ways to help cou...

This episode is inspirational. Nothing has come easy for Michael Varga. In the Peace Corps, he had the toughest assignment in an already difficult country. As a diplomat, he faced huge challenges. And now, in retirement, batt...

Journalist Fred de Sam Lazaro created the Under-Told Stories Project more than three decades ago, bringing stories from some of the most remote parts of the world into the living rooms of PBS NewsHour viewers and classrooms o...

Ben East is a writer. His work shows him to be an astute student of soft power. There is a clear through line running between his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, his experiences as a U.S. diplomat, and his work as ...

Flo Reed believes--no, she knows--that when people work together, they can overcome challenges and create significant change. Her work in Central America in the Peace Corps allowed her to see the threats that small farmers fa...

Dr. Julia Irwin is the leading scholar writing about the history and impact of US disaster relief. In this fascinating conversation, she shares some entertaining and little-known stories to outline the evolution of American a...

Warren Acuncius has seen a lot. His work for USAID as a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) leader took him all over the world. He saw the aftermath of cataclysmic tragedies and suffering on a scale that most cannot imag...

Before Alexa West became the quintessential Solo Girl traveler, inspiring a new generation of women to confidently explore the world on their own, she was a solo girl (Peace Corps) volunteer--still helping women, but from a v...

In this short companion piece to novelist Roland Merullo's regular SP/FS episode, he discusses his deeply unique--and even more deeply remote--Peace Corps role, in perhaps the most remote location ever assigned. Postage stamp...

In the waning years of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) mounted massive exhibitions about American culture throughout the USSR--with everything from fully equipped American kitchens to a car display featur...

Betsy Small grew up aware of both her privileged place in the world and her family's rapid rise from poverty and persecution. Both left a mark, resulting in decades of empathy and action--at home and in some of the most vulne...

In this short companion piece to Ambassador Pamela White's regular SP/FS episode, she discusses the art of diplomacy, using her time with The Gambia's fascinating but deeply flawed former President Yahya Jammeh. Pamela White ...

Pamela White has given more than four decades of her life, serving the United States all over the world. As a Peace Corps volunteer, with USAID, and eventually as the U.S. Ambassador to The Gambia and Haiti, she has--and cont...

Glenn Blumhorst is a global citizen who has lived, worked, and travelled in more than 70 countries. Starting as a Peace Corps volunteer in a tiny Guatemalan village, he would grow into a local legend: "Don Glenn de las Luces"...

Elizabeth Gore, founder of the hugely successful fintech company Hello Alice, has spent her life breaking down barriers and helping others to help themselves. Whether college classmates seeking independence, Bolivian women fa...

Author Carl Henn likes to claim that he has spent two centuries in Africa. And while it may have only felt like 200 years, his actual decades of life-saving work there--as a Peace Corps volunteer, NGO worker, and USAID health...

SoftPower/FulStories is a storytelling podcast that highlights human connections around the world, featuring a diverse array of accomplished storytellers with decades of experience in soft power. Because no one can go it alon...

SoftPower/FulStories launches on September 5, 2025.