I realized that blogging is not my forte...considering I haven't written about anything since my Spring Break '12 experience after In-Service Training. Well, a lot has happened since then. So much, in fact, that next week is my Closing of Service (COS) conference. This marks the end of my service--well at least the beginning of the end. I'll officially have a little less than 3 months left in Cameroon. Where has the time gone people?!!
About a month ago, my Peace Corps regional recruiter e-mailed me asking if I would be willing to submit a PCV profile to post on their blog to help with recruiting new PCVs. One of the questions was to provide a summary of my primary and secondary projects that I've been working on/completed during my service. I've included this summary (and photos) to give you an idea of what I've been doing in the past year (and a few months?) since my last post. Warning: these are pretty short descriptions of each project, so if you have any questions or want more details, feel free to ask!
Primary Projects:
- National Girls Forum: I was asked by my program manager in the beginning of my service to spearhead a committee to organize a national conference to promote girl’s empowerment. The committee consisted of four Youth Development volunteers. On August 2012 and June 2013, Peace Corps Cameroon’s Youth Development program introduced the first two National Girl’s Forums. Both conferences were funded by PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). The conference focused on three goals:
- To call attention to the status of the girl child in Cameroon;
- To generate a national network of individual and organizations dedicated to the fight for girl’s empowerment in Cameroon; and
- To provide a platform for the presentation of best practices, developed and implemented around the country.
2.
Life
Skills Camp for Girls: A collaboration project with a Health PCV on an 8-day
Life Skills camp with elementary school girls. A total of about 45 girl
participated in the camp where they learned HIV/AIDS awareness and education,
building effective communication skills, promoting self-esteem, and how to
become a role model in their community through leadership skills.
(Me and some of the girls from camp)
3.
Aid 2
Empowerment Scholarship Program: Working with six girls in Ngaoundéré (my
post) who have received scholarship money from the A2Empowerment organization.
The scholarship money will allow the girls to go back to school during the 2013
and 2014 school years. The girl’s
ages range 14-23 years old. All of the girls had to drop out of school, mostly
due to lack of funding for school or early pregnancy.
4.
Teaching
Life Skills with Out-of-School-Girls: I work with a group of 18 girls who
are currently not enrolled in school. We meet weekly at the Women’s Center at
the Promotion of Women and Family delegation. I facilitate Life Skills sessions
that include leadership, decision-making, sexual reproductive health, HIV/AIDS
and STD education and prevetion, basic savings and money management, and income
generating activities.
5.
World
Aids Day 2012: On World Aids Day, December 1, 2012, I held an HIV/AIDS
sensitization at Djackbol Elementary School located in my neighborhood. The
students who participated are in the last two years of elementary school. The
goal of the activity was to sensitize elementary school students on HIV/AIDS
education on transmission and prevention. 100 students attended the activity.
At the end of the training, students made posters with the information they
learned to hang up around the school and were instructed to sensitize other
students at the school using the posters.
(Students made posters to hang at school teaching other students about HIV prevention)
6.
Training
of Trainers of Peer Educators of the University of Ngaoundere: I completed
a 3-day training on improving facilitation skills and introducing Peace Corps
approach to facilitation with 45 university student. All students are members
of the Red Cross Club and Peer Educator Leaders Club at the University of
Ngaoundere.
(All of the Peer Educators)
7.
Regional
Life Skills Youth Camp: In February of 2013, I approached the PCVS in my
region about planning a summer camp series for the youth in our communities.
Together, we organized a Life Skills camp for high school youth. The camps were
each 5 days long and covered topics on: leadership, role models, environment,
HIV/AIDS and STI education and prevention, puberty, communication and decision
making skills, peer pressure, and goal setting. We completed 4 summer camps in 4 different locations and
worked with over 120 high school students and trained 13 community
counterparts.
(Students from my camp in Ngaoundere)
Secondary Projects:
1.
Income
Generating Activity Training with the PTA of Djackbol Elementary School: This
was a collaboration activity with a Community Economic Development PCV. 35
members of the l’Association des Mères d’Élevés (Mothers of Students
Association) at the Bumjere Elementary School of Ngaoundere participated in a
3-day income generating activity training.
We taught women the importance of saving,
investing in their children’s education, and gave them tools on how they can
better save their money through budgeting. The women learned how to make
lotion, soap, soymilk, tofu, and cakes. The women learned the nutritional and
financial benefits of using soy in their everyday cooking. We emphasized the
importance of good nutrition for their families and how this can help keep
their children in school, improve school attendance, and the many financial
benefits of keep their families healthy (i.e. less medical expenses).
(Showing the women how to make tofu)
2.
Water and
Sanitation Hygene (WASH) Training with elementary school students: This was
a secondary collaboration project with 3 PCVS in my region. This activity was
the final project that finalized a latrine project at the Kognoli Elementary School.
We planned and facilitated a 3-day WASH training with the school. We trained
the students on waterborne illness prevention (cholera, amoebas, typhoid etc.)
and how to build tippy taps for hand washing. We made tippy taps for hand
washing stations for the newly built latrine.
Committees &
Training:
I am also a member of the Youth Development Steering
committee, where YD volunteers work closely with our Program Manager (Amadou),
the Manager of Programming and Training, and the Country Director in improving
the program and training of new Peace Corps trainees. Since Cameroon’s YD
program is brand new, we had the opportunity to revise the project framework of
the program (project goals, objectives, and indicators for monitoring and
evaluation). We did such a stellar job that D.C recommended our framework to
Peace Corps Morocco as a guide (we’re pretty awesome if I say so myself).
I was also selected to help train the new PCTs who arrived
in September 2012. I spent two weeks at our main office working alongside
fellow PCVs to create the schedule and developing sessions for the 8 week
training (same training I went through during my first three months in
country).
