Hey everyone. Hope all is well in everyone’s lives. I'm constantly looking forward to checking my mail (once or twice a month) for letters and I'm constantly let down. Shame on you. Just kidding, I know you’re all busy, but seriously, in comparison you can write a letter and get to a post office 50x before I have the opportunity to do it once…
Enough of that guilt trip (but seriously, how am I supposed to know what’s going on without the ability to creep on FB?)…
I got finished in Kpalimé for the first annual Women’s Conference at the end of May. After leaving there and being back in village for two days, I can confidently say that it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. It ranks right up there with Belize
Today, I just got back from Pagala. What’s Pagala? There’s a center that is run by Peace Corps in this village in the middle of the country. It’s where we have trainings, but also host camps for kids. I did a 3.5 day training for Camp Espoir Camp Espoir Camp Hope
Camp UNITE
Camp UNITE is another weeklong camp that happens 4 times during the grand vacance (long/summer vacation) The weeks are separated by 1) girl apprentices 2) boy apprentices 3) girl students 4) boy students. The campers/participants are all nominated by volunteers or our NGO/association partners. I have training for this July 13-16 and the camp for me (Girls Students) is the last week of July. During this camp we teach life skills: being a good role model, gender equity, health, sanitation, hygiene, income generating activities, etc. etc. I’ll have more to say about this (and Camp Espoir
I’d like to say about these camps- these budgets are huge and volunteers (and their families) struggle for funding. I'm stuck on a line of hoping that the Togolese will start to give more financially to aide their own country (read: create sustainability), but as with any development work (and in life!)… money- you know.
This is the first week of August. So I’ll be in Pagala for 2 weeks straight. Long story short, girls don’t get to be interested in things like science. It’s hard and it’s for boys. When kids start high school, they get to choose a “series”: language, science and 2 others that I can’t think of right now. Almost no girls choose science because they’re made to think they’re not smart enough and that it’s men’s work- when actually a lot of them wish to be sage femmes (mid-wives). This week-long camp is for Peace Corps Volunteers with one teacher from their village and 3 girls to participate in science experiments, learn the scientific method and gain the tools to start science clubs in their respective villages.
Nominations for Camp Joie
Vacation Enterprise
I wrote about how I'm giving money to five different girls to do small business activities during the summer. This week is our training. Here’s our schedule:
L’entreprise de la grande vacance
CEG Kpategan 2011
Lundi, 20 juin
08h00: Arrivée et chanter «Bonjour les amis»
08h30: Brise glace: «si tu m’aime…»
08h45: Ecrire un résume de son projet
09h15: Partager les résumes des projets
09h45: Choisir les buts du projet
10h15: Discuter le contrat
11h00: Ecrire une liste des matériaux avec les prix approximatives et discuter «le grocery list»
11h15: Donner les reçus exemplaires et commencer la pratique de caisse exemplaire
11h50: Questions
12h00: Le départ pour manger et reposer
14h30: Une séance sur la confiance en soi
Mardi, 21 juin
08h00: Arrivée et chanter
08h30: Brise glace: Dapaong, Atakpamé, Lomé
08h45: Poser les questions d’hier
9h00: Faire la pratique des caisses exemplaires
9h30: Faire l’étude de faisabilité avec l’exemple du savon liquide
10h15: Faire l’étude de faisabilité avec son projet même
11h00: Comment protéger l’argent contre les voleurs (au marché et à la maison)
11h15: Une séance de l’harcèlement sexuel
12h00: Le départ
14h30: La séance de Camilla/Aidi avec son homologue
Mercredi, 22 juin
07h00: Arrivée et chanter
07h30: Manger les biscuits et boire le jus d’Amérique
07h45: Expliquer les buts du projet
08h15: Lire le contrat et poser des questions
09h15: Discuter comment soutenir nos filles
09h45: Créer une liste des choses qu’on achète souvent mais qui ne sont pas nécessaires
10h00: Choisir 2 ou 3 jours pendant juillet/août pour réunir et échanger les réussites et les échecs
10h15: Facultatif: Faire l’étude de faisabilité pour le crème de citronnelle et créer le crème
I bet you want to see that in English, eh?
Junior High of Kpategan 2011
Monday, June 20
arrive and sing a song called “welcome my friends”
we’re going do an icebreaker called “if you love me”. We stand in a circle and I’ll start by going up to someone and saying “if you love me, you must smile” and I’ll try to do things to get them to smile/laugh. If they do, they enter the middle and try on someone else; if they don’t, I have to try again with someone else. My objective of this is to teach the girls that it’s important that even during work/school, laughing and having fun is important (nobody really stresses anything but cooking/washing clothes and dishes to girls)
they’re going to write a summary of what they hope their individual projects will include (they had to write a letter of interest to me already and then further explain in detail during interviews before I chose them)
the girls will share their goals in the big group
we will define the goals of the project (examples: make money, see that girls are strong, learn how to manage money, ultimately use all the profits to pay for school)
we will discuss the contract I created that says things like the money made must be used to pay for school, what happens if they don’t pay me back the money I lent them, etc.
we’re going to make lists of all the materials they each need to buy and estimated prices. I'm also going to explain the idea of creating a grocery list before going to the market in order to avoid wasting money on things we don’t need.
11:15am- I’m going to give them copies of blank receipts they use here and also practice how to keep track in a notebook (it’s essentially a spreadsheet) of their costs and profits.
questions
Noon- they will go home to eat and rest (this time is typically always to )
2:30- a meeting about self confidence
Tuesday, June 21
arrive and sing
icebreaker about how to listen to instructions (they line up horizontally and I will draw 3 horizontal lines in the sand. Each is called a certain village; the top is a village up north, the middle is in the middle and the bottom is the capital in the south. When I say Dapaong they have to jump to the northern line. When I say Atakpamé it is the middle and Lomé is the southern line. It starts off slow and gets faster and faster and if they jump to the wrong line, they’re eliminated.
here is a chance for them to ask questions from things they didn’t understand from yesterday.
I'm going to give scenarios and examples of expenses and profits and have them practice using their handmade spreadsheet to keep track of their money.
9:30am- I’m going to teach them about feasibility studies using the example of making liquid soap and selling it in the market (it costs 2,500 francs for the materials, 1,000 francs to travel and get the materials and 500 francs to buy the bottles to put it in… which equals 4,000. This typically sells for 500 francs per bottle and makes 10 bottles which means we’ll make 5,000 francs. Let’s subtract the cost of 4,000… we only make 1,000 francs for a whole lot of work. Feasible aka worth a ton of work? Vous voyez? (You see?) This is a difficult concept for lots of people here to grasp because not many people plan like this. In reality, according to my observations, a lot of women actually lose money in their markets because they don’t understand the concept of keeping track of things or that traveling to “the city” to buy materials is expensive and we should keep track of that too.
they’re each going to a feasibility study for their own projects.
they’re going to talk about how to keep their money safe from robbers (in the market and at their houses)
11:00am- I'm going to take advantage of having girls who are listening to me to talk about sexual harassment, explaining zero tolerance and how to speak up for themselves and not have to sleep with men who ask them (girls here generally can’t refuse someone like a teacher because they’re taught to obey and respect… and also don’t want to be given bad grades in revenge)
Noon- break for lunch and rest
another volunteer (Camilla) is going to come and do a session with her counterpart. I'm so excited for this, I love when volunteers do work together because I get so many new ideas from them and it makes everything so much easier (problem-solving, finding words in French, everything!)
Wednesday, June 22
arrive and sing with the parents/guardians that each girl will bring this day
eat cookies and drink juice that I'm going to make with some drink packets my mom sent me
8:00am- I’m going to have the girls explain the overall goals of this project to their parents. This gives them an opportunity to practice speaking in public and I can also verify that they really understand.
I'm scared for this because it’s really complicated… we’re going to ready the contracts together and they can ask all their questions
we will have a discussion about how to support girls (essentially we’re going to talk about treating girls like they treat boys)
we’re going to create a list of things they buy often when they go to the market but it’s not necessary (alcohol, etc.) in order to learn to save money and all that good stuff… like spending it on education instead!
we’re going to choose 2 or 3 days during July and August that we’re all free to come together and discuss our successes and failures and brainstorm/troubleshoot together
its optional if the parents want to learn how to do a feasibility study and citronella lotion and also learn how to make it. It is a lotion that is made with boiled leaves from a certain tree that keeps mosquitoes away. All you do is grate a bar of soap, add a liter of oil, a liter of water and a spoonful of the citronella liquid. So easy and it’s cheap to make and sells well… big profit here but not one person in my village knows it.
Other work:
1) Peer Support Network & Diversity Committee: Applied for these. Will find out if I got them. One is to be a phone contact and peer supporter for volunteers with problems/struggles. Diversity Committee does trainings for Peace Corps staff, trainees and volunteers about diversity issues here.
2) Rewriting GEE Objectives: I was in Lomé to help form new objectives for trainings and for my program. It’s kind of esoteric so I’ll leave this at that.
3) Workstation/House manager: We have a transit house/workstation in our regional capital that requires management of funds, facilities, etc. The 2 volunteers in charge are leaving so I'm taking charge with another newer volunteer.
This is long and I'm tired… I hope I explained things well and that it wasn’t too boring… even though I doubt anyone actually read all my blabbering. Ok, I'm shutting up now.
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