Pictures where ment to be included but the internet is not willing.
So I’ve wanted to share this now for a while. Not to toot my own horn but because I think it’s blog worthy. And because friends have been asking a few questions along these lines lately too. I think it will give you an idea of what I’m working on and who I’m working with. And what is this all accomplishing. And maybe you and I will understand a small part of the word “development”. It’s a really tough vocab word though when you start looking at the details.
Anyway, I am in the youth development sector of Peace Corps and so most work is focused as such. I am not developing infrastructure, or fish ponds, or teaching people new ways to grow crops. Although sometimes I wish I was because results are more tangible and numbers can used. Numbers don’t lend themselves well to my sector. This is more of a human development thing, for both me and my community. And human development is a life long process. Still learning as I go, I can only share as much as I’ve learned in my 23 American years. And while my years are not many I’ve realized here in the DR that I’ve been very fortunate to have had a wide variety of experiences growing up in the states. And the basic education (public school and college) that I received is really worth something I´ve realized as well. And now as I look back on this year I see how all these experiences have been influencing my work here and will continue to direct my work in the next year.
So here it goes… I’m taking this from a short 15 minute PowerPoint I made up for our 1 year IST, entitled “Key Activities and Key Players in Pedro Sánchez”. I made a point to not only highlight the activities but the key people behind them because I’m relying on them so much here. And after one year here I have learned to really value the people who want to move and work with me.
English with Daybi
Daybi is my bread and butter. My main man and go to guy. If he could only be involved in every project! This guy gets all the super achievement stars I can give him. When I first got here to Pedro Sánchez his dad introduced me to him in their colmado saying Daybi speaks some English. Even by this point in country I expected to converse the first few lines in any standard English text and be done with it. But Daybi wouldn’t let me stop. He kept throwing words out there that caught me off guard. And his pronunciation was pretty good, better then intelligible. Surprising all the more when I found out he learned all this from studying an old English book he came across. So I took note and after about the second week of people asking me about 5 times a day when English classes were going to start I went to Daybi. English was the last thing I wanted to do getting here but I told Daybi that I would work with him if he would help me out with teaching an English class. My idea was maybe sometime in the future have him take charge of the class. So I met with him three times a week and he was my sidekick during our English classes. Now we are still meeting but Daybi is basically teaching two different classes on his own with a few grammer books my mom got donated. And to my good fortune he’s an incredible naturally gifted teacher!
While I wouldn’t consider English a top priority for development work, especially in light of many other issues to be tackled, English here in this part of this country can lead (for better or worse in the big picture) to above average jobs in the hotels in nearby Bavaro and Punta Cana. So while I still wouldn’t want English classes to be a center piece for me, I am happy to spend the time I do with Daybi. Because I am 100% certain this is a sustainable project after I leave. And for the kids who really want to study this can lead directly, without a doubt, to a hotel job in the future.
Fútbol with Monsanto
I was there the day fútbol came to Pedro Sanchez. Imagine that!? It started with me bringing my ball to the baseball field one day and about 30 kids running around crazy kicking it and tackling each other. They had never played or seen this game before in their lives. And it was a mess at first. But with Monsanto, a Dominican who is from Jarabacoa which is a soccer oasis in this soccer desolate country, we slowly began to teach the game and the same certain kids began showing up practice after practice. At first we would play only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then the kids talked me into a few Saturdays and Sundays (which really wasn’t that hard to do). Now it is basically every afternoon whether I am there or not.
I still can’t hold back the smiles when I walk out to the field on a random afternoon and see these kids playing soccer on their own! And these are mainly kids who aren’t baseball players and weren’t involved in much day to day somewhat structured activities. Now they are learning the beautiful game! How beautiful is that!?
After not too long I realized that these kids really have no idea of what it means to be on a team or what personal accountability is; or other general human interaction/life skills. So throughout this whole process I have been trying to get these kids conscious of what this looks like. Although even today, this is still a huge struggle for them and me. But there is some progress on this front and this will continue to be a focus point in the next year. These kids are not going to become the next Ronaldinho, there is not the soccer structure set up here in this country for this. So I try to balance my soccer instruction with good people instruction when appropriate.
Ecojo with Eduardo
Escojo is a national youth initiative promoting healthy decision making relating to sex health and beyond. It was started by some older PC DR Volunteers, and aims to form youth groups and leaders who will multiply this information to other youth and community groups through presentations, activities, and the like. And honestly I have been struggling with this youth group concept from the get go. In training they heavily emphasized to us that we should try to form some type of youth group (be it an environmentally focused one, Escojo, hybrid, or just any group of youth that meets regularly). I say struggling because I don’t buy the sustainability of the youth groups. And especially now, after a year of seeing how much effort it takes to just get the kids to meet. I constantly feel I am hounding and coercing them and I feel the day I stop this is the day the youth group stops. Because it happened to my first youth group effort.
But now I’m working with different youth, fewer and so more focused, and a different theme (the first was environmental education). And while still difficult I have a few kids onboard and one great youth, Eduardo, pushing with me. We have done a presentation to two community groups and an activity for World AIDS in our community so far. And have attended various conferences with other youth from all over the country. I am more hopeful now for the success of this group and them doing more activities/presentations and becoming stronger with Eduardo taking the lead.
A Few Honorable Mentions
Business Plan Competition
Together with these three guys we put together a business plan and did a small feasibility study for this competition/conference. The winners would get all or part of their plan funded. Their proposal was for an arcade type place where they would have Nintendos, Playstation, etc for kids to come and rent by the hour. It was a great business idea really because people don’t have these gaming systems in their houses here and there wouldn’t be much overhead costs (besides electricity) after they bought the initial systems and televisions. When they first presented me with the idea I was not that thrilled by the principals of it and so I had to think how we could make this a more worthwhile and wholesome business. So we proposed to tie it into education a bit by restricting access to kids while they should be in school (either in the morning or afternoon) and also not letting kids in who didn’t pass their classes the previous semester. So with these new regulations I was cool with the project and had a great time working with them to flesh it out and fulfill the requirements of the competition. In the end we didn’t win but they came out of a three day conference having heard presentations on a wide variety of business topics such as: customer service, bookkeeping, mission/vision, assessing demand, etc. And even I learned a lot going through this with them and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sports Tournment
This was really the first project I was involved in at my site and it was a great warm up and initiation into the workings of the community. It involved one full weekend of about 300 kids from the surrounding communities competing in Volleyball and baseball. It came off well looking back I guess. Although I remember it being a pretty big headache during. I remember I ended up doing a lot of the leg work. But I was also able to see who here in the community is all talk and who really gets down and works with you. And to this day those people who worked hard in this are still by my side in whatever we need to get done.
Reading Groups
There were two of these. One was at my house with about 6 kids and kind of sporadic, mainly whenever they were all around so we wouldn’t have to go searching high and low for anyone. We were reading through The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe and progressed well I thought but this kind of fell apart later as meetings slowly got further and further apart. I guess I’m not too good at begging kids to come and reminding them over and over and really sometimes that’s what it takes. Their parents certainly don’t send them out the door to my house to read, that’s for sure! The second group was kind of a coordinated effort between myself and the girl who manages the small library we have in our new tech center. And it was mainly with high school age kids. We would meet twice a week and read short stories from Dominican authors. I enjoyed this but we are kind of on hold as the whole month of December and first part of January is useless to do anything much. Nobody wants to get together for anything. So I am hoping to be able to start off where we left with this. But I’m not holding my breath either.
For the IST presentation I had lessons learned and promising practices slides but just for the sake of length I will leave that off of this. And just share some goals for my last year.
The first is I want to get this homework/after school center going (called Espacios Para Crecer). Up to this point it has been a people networking nightmare and I’ve been stretched hugely on my interpersonal and people influencing skills. The plot is way too think to lay out here but I will just say I saw prospects to get this program going from day one and have had many frustrations along the way. At times I was almost about to abandoned the whole idea but it is really too good to do that so I just let it rest until it was time to wake it up. It’s now up and awake and its wheels are moving forward. I hope to achieve some progress with this in the next month and by a Dominican March or April have it going. If faster I will be incredibly surprised. I will also say this project kept me from being totally pumped about my first year and if I can get this going this year I really feel that I can walk out of here happy. Even with the other things going, this one is that big too me.
The next is that I want to get soccer goals for my soccer kids. I envision this to be pretty straight forward. Just a matter of money which has been half way promised to us from the mayor. I would also like to get more soccer balls and cleats down here for the kids (*wink *wink). And I won’t lie to you that more then half the kids who play don’t have shoes to play in.
The next is to do a drawing class and offer one or two scholarships to the kids who do the best work to take another class in Santo Domingo. I generously got this awesome drawing book donated (in Spanish) by the author Betty Edwards. I have been using it on a more informal basis at my house with a few kids but I would really like to do a few months of once a week classes for about 20 kids. I’m really excited about getting this going! And I have been doing more drawing myself as well which I have really enjoyed.
There is also the possibility of doing guitar classes too but the lack of another guitar or two is still holding this back. I have been working on getting one, both here in the DR and with organizations at home, but as of yet no go. Still haven’t given up that search though. But in the meantime I play and give more informal classes to one kid named Francis who borrows the Catholic Church’s guitar.
Those are pretty much the new things I am gunning for this year. And maybe giving a class at the computer center as well. Ohh yea I almost forgot. I also want to get this program called grassroots soccer going with my soccer team. It’s a really interesting HIV/AIDS prevention program started in Africa that uses sports to teach. Check it out online too if you want to know more. Do a google search for it and you’ll find it. Finally I still need to continue with the things that are currently going to get them to walk on their own by November next year.
It may sound like a lot or it may not. It is and it isn’t. Just depends on the day, the week, and the weather. Seriously.
