Gender Camp!

So I had the idea to do a two-day day camp at my school way back in August, when we were planning out the school term. The form 3 students take their end of school exams in October and are done and gone by the first week of November.  The form 1 and 2 students take their end of the year exams in November and then have about a week where they have to be at school but they really do nothing, because the teachers are busy grading. So, I thought I could use some of that time to sort of blitz them with information through a camp, and not have to worry about food/sleeping arrangements/transport/bathing this time around.

Me and one of my volleyball girls.

The camp wound up being for Form 2s (all 240ish of them), and we did sessions on gender, gender based violence, gender and power, reproductive health, healthy relationships, and contraception.  It was also during the 16 days of activism against gender based violence, so we gave the kids an opportunity to sign a pledge against GBV and gave out white ribbons. I had 6 other volunteers helping me, so we each had a session. I only did my gender and power game with about half of the kids, but that's okay. All of the other sessions were done for all of the classes, and I consider that a huge success.

The frustrating part was that my school and guidance and counseling committee was supportive of me as I planned the camp, but then gave me no support DURING the camp. I didn't mind planning it and having other volunteers come and facilitate sessions, but I wanted teachers in the classrooms for translation, cultural sensitivity, and crowd control. And that didn't happen at all- we did the entire thing ourselves as PCVs. Which, was super super frustrating  and I really wanted to just walk out the first day because things were so badly planned/not planned at all on the school's part. But, then I saw my friends playing games with like 80 kids and the kids were having a ball, so we decided to just do it ourselves. 

Visuals of AIDS, HIV, female condoms, and assertiveness.

We split the kids into single gender groups, and about half of the boys wandered off halfway through each day because we only had 2 teachers helping us keep order. So we had full classes of girls and half classes of boys. But, it was better than nothing, a lot of kids learned stuff and had fun, and it was the best we could do under the circumstances. They learned about different types of gender based violence, they each got to practice putting a condom on a model, and they learned the difference between gender and sex.

Condom demonstration!

We also had a lot of fun with 6 of us squished in my house, cooking all of the things, including Mexican food and a giant banana scone.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do, banana scone!

Super delicious and fun

Hanging out in my house

The biggest thing was I feel like this helped break the ice between me and a lot of these kids. So I hope that I can teach more effectively next year. 

The banner says "Gender and Wellness Day Camp"

All in all, a successful camp. Frustrating at times, but the kids got a lot out of it, and that's really all that matters. Also, my fellow PCVs are amazing people who slept on my floor, interacted with my kids, and put up with the crazy from my school. I love my government issued family :D

  

We try to look normal...

but this is far more accurate ;)