West Orange Woman Joins Peace Corps: 'I'm In Awe Of This Planet'

WEST ORANGE, NJ — West Orange native Nadine Hamilton is turning her love for travel into a two-year effort to lend a helping hand to her fellow humans, via the U.S. Peace Corps.

On Tuesday, Hamilton embarked on her journey with the U.S. Peace Corps, where she'll fully immerse herself in a foreign culture while serving an in-need population. It’s a lifelong dream come true for the West Orange High School graduate and travel aficionado, who has also lived in Costa Rica and Vietnam. (See photos above and video below)

How does a West Orange shutterbug end up volunteering in the Peace Corps? According to Hamilton’s sister, Charlotte – who called her “one of the most intelligent, inspiring and empathetic” people she knows – it began after she graduated WOHS in 2012.

After earning her diploma, Hamilton attended The College of New Jersey, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Public and Mass Communications Studies & Women’s and Gender Studies. She then interned in New York City for Human Rights Watch, later moving to Costa Rica for two years to work for the Global Leadership Adventures program within Terra Education.

That’s where she got her first experience with “cultural immersion,” a mainstay of the Peace Corps philosophy.

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Documenting her experiences in photos all the while, Hamilton moved to Vietnam, where she received a certificate of IV in TESOL. She made plans to teach English in Vietnam, only to find that she was accepted into the Peace Corps a few months after arriving.

Jumping at the opportunity, Hamilton returned to West Orange to catch up with family and friends, then hopped onto a plane to spend the rest of the summer at an off-the-grid farm in Northern California.

Now, it’s off to the Peace Corps… and all the “humbling” adventure that’s sure to come.

Speaking with Patch, Hamilton shared some of her hopes – and fears – that she expects to encounter during the next two years:

“One of the biggest challenges I foresee in the Peace Corps is achieving total integration and earning the trust of the community members at my placement site. While wanting to use my leadership skills and technical training to advance the projects that I’ll be working on, I mainly want to ensure that the community is sitting in the driver’s seat and taking ownership of these initiatives. The best way I can serve a community, or anyone for that matter, is to build its own capacity and to know when to take a step back and hand over the reins. This way, these projects will be truly sustainable and not just reliant on a Peace Corps volunteer to run them.”

Hamilton continued:

“I hope to make genuine and meaningful connections with my students and community members, be of service to youth in any way that’s needed, listen more than I speak, have a life-defining and humbling experience, make this beautiful country feel like home, and master Dominican-style Merengue.”

Hamilton posted the below video of her travels in Northern Vietnam and Cambodia, which was filmed in February and March.

“I’m in total awe of this planet and the people in it,” she wrote in the video’s description, calling them a “handful of surreal moments” that she’ll never forget.

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