SP/FS #53: Paul Strasburg

Listen to SoftPower/FulStories episode #53, featuring Paul Strasburg.

“I alone cannot change the world. But I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” - Mother Teresa

A routine trip in northern Thailand changed the course of Peace Corps volunteer Paul Strasburg’s life—even if he didn’t know it at the time. A simple request by a rural teacher to help build a modest school where his students could learn indoors became a successful challenge.

Paul helped connect the teacher, Boonthom Boonprasert, with students in the United States who, through local efforts, raised enough to build the school in 1965-1966.

In a 2021 profile of Paul at Peace Corps Worldwide, Jeremiah Norris wrote: Some four decades after his Volunteer experience, Paul returned to the village. He was surprised to see that not just the four-room schoolhouse had been built, but with just an investment of $2,000, the teacher’s success had expanded beyond serving students to spurring on economic development in the community. What was reinforced to Paul on that day was this: “Small can in fact be big.”

After the Peace Corps and positions at the Ford Foundation, the Vera Institute of Justice, and the New York City government as Commissioner of the Department of Juvenile Justice, Paul moved to California to start a small people-to-people development assistance program called International Development Exchange (IDEX). In the decades since, IDEX grew into a significant conduit of international learning and financial assistance. It is now known as Thousand Currents.

LISTEN: "Schoolyard Days" - Amble