Community English Class:
Tuesday nights I teach a beginner English
class for adults in my community. The “Costeno promise” generally involves
repeating the greatness of the idea and your certain attendance, followed by,
low-and-behold, not coming. However, I am excited to say that the class has
been extremely popular, with usually 18-25 adults attending. Everyone has big
personalities, is super enthusiastic and avid homework-doers (a nice change).
Classes are fun; we play lots of games, watch videos, act, listen to music.
Cultural exchanges have included introducing me to Colombian rap artists and how
to dance “mapale” in return expanding their pop music knowledge from Rihanna
and Justin Bieber and how to dance the electric slide.
English Teacher Classes:
Every other Saturday two other Peace Corps volunteers,
Monica and Victor, and I hold a meeting for English teachers of Cartagena at my
school. The aim is not to improve English language competency but rather to
focus on methodologies and how to teach English more effectively. Topics have
included: planning curriculum, making and saving lesson plans, teaching to
students with different learning styles, and presenting successful games and activities
that can be used in large classrooms with limited resources. Getting teachers
to come on a Saturday has meant lots of “Costeno promises,” as mentioned above,
but the few attendees (we’ve had from 2-6 teachers show up) are very positive
about the class and furthermore working with teachers who are eager to learn and
change is reassuring and rewarding.
Girls’ Leadership Group:
I saved the best for last!
I wanted to do projects outside of teaching English and
furthermore was frustrated with not being able to find anything (indicatively there
is no translation of “to volunteer” in Spanish). So, I created my own project… instead
of participating in community service projects and volunteering by myself, why
don’t I create my own I can control and get students to do it with me?
It has been hard at
times to live in such a machista culture where many woman stay with and seem to
get validation from being with a man, no matter if he is a cheater or abusive.
Moreover, there are pregnant girls as young as 6th and 7th
grade at my school and after coming back from a week of intensive Peace Corps
HIV/AIDS training, the lack of awareness of sexual health seemed all the more
evident.
So, with the help of the school’s principal, the morning and
afternoon social workers, the psychologist, and Nicole (the previous Peace
Corps volunteer at my site who is a close friend and decided to stay in Cartagena
after finishing her service) our girls’ leadership group has taken off and
going strong for 5 weeks now!
We have 20 girls, all 10th graders, and meet
every Thursday night. We are finishing up our first unit on a healthy body
image/healthy lifestyles. We’ve had some interesting discussions and last week
the group made pamphlets on obesity, anorexia, and bulimia that are now in the
resource center. I take dance classes twice a week and my teacher is coming to
give a dance class to the girls for our final part of the unit. The plan for
the next topic is sexual health and pregnancy prevention. I have been writing a
grant with the Peace Corps to get funding so that larger-scale projects, trips,
and guest speakers outside of the school can be possible.
The overall goal for the group is to support the girls to
become leaders of their own bodies and in the community.
Our three objectives are as follows:
1. 1. To raise girls’ self-esteem through gaining
self-awareness: emotionally, physically and sexually. More specifically this
means identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, dealing with stressful
situations, thinking through decisions, and making goals for their future,
among others. We gave the girls a list of possible topics and what we discuss
Thursdays is largely based on those which they selected.
2. 2. To start the considering options after
graduating, specifically entrance to university. This means bringing in
professionals from various careers to talk to the girls about their job, visiting
universities to see how students live, and working on applications, resumes and
interview skills.
3. 3. To think of other people and issues in the
communities of Cartagena and to participate in community service projects that the
girls themselves design. The girls have started to discuss needs and problems
in their communities (such as lack of space for youth to hang-out and play,
gangs, familial violence, disabled people, and trash). The ultimate goal is to
have the girls identify an issue they are interested in and then, with our
help, to go into neighborhoods of Cartagena and create and implement projects
to combat the problem.
