The Smithsonian Folklife Festival will present the Peace Corps, honoring fifty years of exchange that have helped promote greater understanding and appreciation of cultures from around the world. The program brings together volunteers and many of the people with whom they have served.

One Peace Corps volunteer, Barbara Jo White, who worked in the Dominican Republic from 1987 to 1989, created the World Map Project to interest school children in geography. The program has spread, and colorful hand-painted maps now brighten the walls of schools and community buildings around the world.

This project will be recreated on the National Mall at this year's Festival. Come out and help paint a section!

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• Students in Burkina Faso.
  Photo courtesy of the Peace Corps
• Students in Fiji.
  Photo courtesy of Brittany Noetzel
• Students in Liberia.
  Photo courtesy of the Peace Corps
• Students in Panama.
  Photo courtesy of the Peace Corps
• Barbara Jo White and the World Map.
  Photo courtesy of the Peace Corps Project

Van Luong is the festival blogger for the 2011 Folklife Festival.