Work:
Library Project: The community is behind the idea and ready to go. The idea is to a build a structure that can be used as a Zonal Resource Center for the teachers and also a Library for the students and community. We are working on raising the money for the library right now and then will get the books from one of several book donation organizations. Look back here in the near future for a link to the library website and how to contribute money! Horray for literacy in Africa! Along side this construction project my counterpart and I are going to be training the teachers on how to use a library, how to use resources in general, the importance of literacy and strengthening the Ministry of Educations programs to teach literacy. The problem is always implementation of new ideas and skills. Lots of educating going on but getting teachers to use those skills in their classrooms, to change how they are use to teaching and working is a difficult challenge. Similar to the challenge of getting people to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Everyone KNOWS how you get it. It is widely talked about in theory. But making decisions with that information is an entirely different thing.
Everything ties together though. Encouraging literacy will also help kids learn English. I am trying to figure out how to help prepare students for the grade 7 and grade 9 tests that they have to pass to continue school. A big percentage of students do not pass them. It seems the major problem is the test is in English and a lot of students don't read English well enough to take the test properly. So in short: we are working on education all around.
I am looking for contacts for fundraising.
Women's Group: I am having my first workshop with a women's association in my area. The idea behind a women's group is that they collectively work on businesses to raise money for the group and to create a soft loan pool for members to access when they need some extra help. It is a wonderful idea but often the groups hit an obstacle and stops working. Or the money is mismanaged and disappears.
We are going to discuss the importance of having a club constitution and following the guidelines you agree too, seasonal calendars - supply and demand, action planning, business planning, ideas, cash flow, profit and loss, budgets, and record keeping. Starting in the very basic of terms: as in - you need to keep records of where your money goes because then you know if you are losing money or if making money how much. Etc. I hope it goes well. Not all of them speak English but my co-facilitator speaks Soli. And again- then they would have to be diligent to keep on the records and go through all the tedious steps of planning.
Community Schools: Community schools are amazing. They are community initiated and supported schools when the local government school is too full or far away. There are lots of things to work on here. Right now we are focusing on - again - constitutions: School vision, Mission statements, and policies. Also deciding what their priority issues are and how they want to address them. In the future we will start working on setting up Income Generating Activities to raise money for the school - to help support the mentors who are generally volunteers. In most cases schools stop operating because the mentor is not getting any support and gets discouraged or has to look for ways to support their family elsewhere.
I just attended a workshop put on by a USAID organization. It was a community school teacher training and had sessions on lesson planning, teaching a multi-grade class, health policies, how to approach gender in the classroom etc. And the three teachers who attended from my zone are holding a training for the rest of the teachers at their schools.
Some the community schools in my area are not running right now and for those we will work on identifying a mentor and rallying community support.
The other PCVs in my district and I are also working on systems for the Ministry of Education to register community schools and organize information about them. We are all really excited about this because procedures around here are pretty fluid and changeable. Never standard and never written down. Makes things difficult. Luckily I work with someone who is a good chart maker.
I sometimes am a better idea maker. But I am going to work on my other skills as well.
Gender: I am going to start doing weekly sessions with the HIV/AIDS club. But have not planned much for them. Talking about facts of HIV/AIDS but also life skills.
Agriculture: Not gotten TOO involved in this but have informally and briefly talked to some people about the tick problem that killed alot of cattle in the village. I am not sure what to do about it. There are some dips and vaccines but they cost money. Might just be convincing farmers to sell one cow to save the rest...but that takes some faith that your actions will be effective. Doing more research.
Sidenote: I hate cattle. Because they roam around free, eat my banana trees, eat my soap, poo in my kitchen insaka and run through my clean white laundry. Perhaps the solution to the cattle dying problem is a big bar-b-que. I kid. I want to save the cows.
There are probably other things and some things mentioned here are only good intentions. My big task in planning my work is starting with the basics and being thorough about them. Start at the appropriate level and slowly build. Zambians get eager and in that eagerness don't always plan well. Keli is the same way. She needs to work on this in order to develop as a person and volunteer.
Keli is excited about her work. Keli needs to get going because two years is not a long time. Though sometimes, in some contexts, it feels like it. Keli is going to be so focused and diligent and detailed that effectiveness is a possibility.
I started a compost pile (Happy Birthday Dad!) in preparation for my wee garden to be planted in Nov.
Everything ties together though. Encouraging literacy will also help kids learn English. I am trying to figure out how to help prepare students for the grade 7 and grade 9 tests that they have to pass to continue school. A big percentage of students do not pass them. It seems the major problem is the test is in English and a lot of students don't read English well enough to take the test properly. So in short: we are working on education all around.
I am looking for contacts for fundraising.
- If you know of any organizations, people, etc who are looking for a good cause please let me know.
- Also, I would like to get a book on Zambia, written by the pupils in my zone, published as a fundraising device. So if you are, or know of any publishers who want to print these books as a charitable donation - well that would be awesome. I am also interested in people who are willing to print for a very reasonable rate.
- If there are girl scout troops and boy scout troops or youth groups who want to take on this library as a project send them my way. Or even if they just want to do a cultural exchange.
Women's Group: I am having my first workshop with a women's association in my area. The idea behind a women's group is that they collectively work on businesses to raise money for the group and to create a soft loan pool for members to access when they need some extra help. It is a wonderful idea but often the groups hit an obstacle and stops working. Or the money is mismanaged and disappears.
We are going to discuss the importance of having a club constitution and following the guidelines you agree too, seasonal calendars - supply and demand, action planning, business planning, ideas, cash flow, profit and loss, budgets, and record keeping. Starting in the very basic of terms: as in - you need to keep records of where your money goes because then you know if you are losing money or if making money how much. Etc. I hope it goes well. Not all of them speak English but my co-facilitator speaks Soli. And again- then they would have to be diligent to keep on the records and go through all the tedious steps of planning.
Community Schools: Community schools are amazing. They are community initiated and supported schools when the local government school is too full or far away. There are lots of things to work on here. Right now we are focusing on - again - constitutions: School vision, Mission statements, and policies. Also deciding what their priority issues are and how they want to address them. In the future we will start working on setting up Income Generating Activities to raise money for the school - to help support the mentors who are generally volunteers. In most cases schools stop operating because the mentor is not getting any support and gets discouraged or has to look for ways to support their family elsewhere.
I just attended a workshop put on by a USAID organization. It was a community school teacher training and had sessions on lesson planning, teaching a multi-grade class, health policies, how to approach gender in the classroom etc. And the three teachers who attended from my zone are holding a training for the rest of the teachers at their schools.
Some the community schools in my area are not running right now and for those we will work on identifying a mentor and rallying community support.
The other PCVs in my district and I are also working on systems for the Ministry of Education to register community schools and organize information about them. We are all really excited about this because procedures around here are pretty fluid and changeable. Never standard and never written down. Makes things difficult. Luckily I work with someone who is a good chart maker.
I sometimes am a better idea maker. But I am going to work on my other skills as well.
Gender: I am going to start doing weekly sessions with the HIV/AIDS club. But have not planned much for them. Talking about facts of HIV/AIDS but also life skills.
Agriculture: Not gotten TOO involved in this but have informally and briefly talked to some people about the tick problem that killed alot of cattle in the village. I am not sure what to do about it. There are some dips and vaccines but they cost money. Might just be convincing farmers to sell one cow to save the rest...but that takes some faith that your actions will be effective. Doing more research.
Sidenote: I hate cattle. Because they roam around free, eat my banana trees, eat my soap, poo in my kitchen insaka and run through my clean white laundry. Perhaps the solution to the cattle dying problem is a big bar-b-que. I kid. I want to save the cows.
There are probably other things and some things mentioned here are only good intentions. My big task in planning my work is starting with the basics and being thorough about them. Start at the appropriate level and slowly build. Zambians get eager and in that eagerness don't always plan well. Keli is the same way. She needs to work on this in order to develop as a person and volunteer.
Keli is excited about her work. Keli needs to get going because two years is not a long time. Though sometimes, in some contexts, it feels like it. Keli is going to be so focused and diligent and detailed that effectiveness is a possibility.
I started a compost pile (Happy Birthday Dad!) in preparation for my wee garden to be planted in Nov.
posted by Keli at 7:52 AM
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