Written on 24-4-07 (WARNING! Graphic images/language related to Sex. Ed. to follow)
Youth Training! Come One, Come All!
See the Americans try to facilitate sessions in Portuguese!
Eat all the chicken or beef (fish= acabo) you can stomach!
Play foosball (yes foosball, not futebol) and annoy the opposite sexon your down time!
Learn about:
- Respecting women!
- Those funny hairs growing in funny places!
- Making your community more aware of adolescent health!
- Not getting pregnant/getting other people pregnant!
- SEX! SEX! SEX!
Tuesday April 17- Saturday the 21, 2007, Joaquim Chissano Secondary School
Xai Xai, Moçambique
So, maybe if we had put a flyer with this up the kids would’ve been a bit more pumped, eh?
Last week was hard.
We organized a training for 50 youth in areas related to Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health. We also had, as a bit of a warm-up for us and a refresher for the participants, a mini-training with some of the Save staff who are helping us monitor and assist the youth groups that we have created. Later on in the post, I may compare the attitudes of the Save staff and those of the youth.
But for now, on with the show.
So, it was very hard just to get the 50- make that 47- kids to the training (If you want further commentary/an entertaining rant that I cannot put on this blog, ask me sometime about ‘logistics’ and watch me blow a fuse). Last week was a holiday for Mozambican schools (equate it to a fall or winter break, but not related to a holiday), so we decided to conduct the training when the kids had plenty of free time. We would go to the communities and interview kids who were interested in participating in the youth groups as a full-fledged member. Here was the criteria:
§ Adolescentes e Jovens que:
§ Sejam VOLUNTÁRIOS;
§ vivem permanentimente na comunidade;
§ São Simpatizantes no núcleo;
§ Estão DISPONÍVEIS E COMPROMETIDOS com as actividades do núcleo num mínimo de 1 ano;
§ Têm HABILIDADES de aprender e CAPACIDADE para transmitir aos outros;
§ Não inferior a 12 e não superior a 20 anos;
§ Não estejam nas classes finais do nível escolar local (5ª e 7ª classes);
§ Ainda não foram treinados oficialmente em matérias de Saúde Sexual e Reprodutiva incluíndo a prevencao do HIV/SIDA.
§ Activistas de outros programas a nível local.
§ “Acreditados” pelos outros adolescentes e Jovens e a comunidade em geral
Sorry, I do not feel like translating all of that, but it’s pretty easy to figure out. It essentially asks for kids who are committed, between the ages of 12-20, and have not yet been trained in ARSH. (Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health, or you may see me forget that I’m writing in English and put SSRAJ, which is Saúde Sexual e Reprodutvia para Adolescentes e Jovens) We asked to have a pool of possible participants in each area. We selected more women than men and more from some areas than others. We are realizing that the dropout rate in these groups is way higher in females for a number of reasons (too much work placed on them, school, pregnancy, marriage), so we stacked our deck to lessen the blow later when the females leave. Also, some communities are more organized than others and really require less help in terms of strong participation, so we tried to boost the membership of those groups that are floundering (lack of leadership, attendance, activity em geral). It was a bit of a process. We get to community X, and half the kids are not qualified based on age or school level. Another few can’t talk because there’s a big goofy white guy sputtering Portuguese in his general direction, which apparently leaves some kids speechless. So, we are left with our elite few, willing to take the charge and become members of the groups. Throw in a free trip to Xai Xai and free food all week and you pretty much convinced any kid on the block that joining this youth group was a good idea.
I’m not being totally fair to these kids. Quite a few were REALLY excited- the most promising prospect of the bunch that I interviewed was a 12 year old girl who had no fear talking about sex or condoms or HIV in front of you, me, Chau, or President Guebuza himself. She was amazing, and after we ended the interview and she walked away, Chau and I both nodded and I said “ that one is the future of this youth group”. There were quite a few others like her, too. Most kids actually fell into the category of “interested, but totally oblivious to ARSH” which was fine. That was, after all, why we were having the training!
So, We invite 50 kids to the Secondary School here in XX. 47 came. Here are a few shots of the facilities:
Not bad, eh? This is probably one of the nicest schools you’ll see in Mozambique outside of Maputo City.
Anyway, so I volunteered myself to ‘monitor’ (read: babysit) the lil’ rascals at night and sleep over at the school with them in the dormitories. Just so you know, I have not not slept in a dormitory since I went to SuperCamp (gosh was it super! Ask my Mom what I thought of it.) at Eckerd College in 7th grade.
*Note: My years at UCF do not count since, as the amazing Joe Paulick reminded us before every Open House that we worked giving tours to prospective students and their families, UCF only has RESIDENCE HALLS. That means no bathroom shared by the whole floor and no more than 5 people to a suite. So there! Woo-ha!
So we kicked this shindig off on Tuesday the 17th. We decided to split them up between sex for most of the training. We were hoping that each group would be more participative since they did not have to worry about what members of the opposite sex would say, and we had been hoping that it would be easier to present material relating to sex- some of which had not yet graced the ears of some of our virginal participants- if males were in general presenting to other males and females presenting to other females. More on that later. The first day, we made sure everyone arrived safely, had some minor meltdowns with the folks who were catering our food (We Ordered 32 half-chickens! Why did you only bring 23!) and talked about how the youth groups are run and how they can organize activities within the community as members of these groups. Chau and I worked with the rapazes and Connie and Luisa worked with the raparigas. Day 1, as a whole, though, went pretty smoothly. The kids seemed to get why they were there, and we were encouraged by relatively eager participation. We ended the day tired but optimistic. I moved in with the boys to the male dormitory (with some help from Magaia, the coolest damn Community Mobilizer this side of anywhere). This was my space.
Quaint. Kind of like Camp Miles, only indoors… mosquitoes and all!
Enter the age-old battle, usually associated with camp or babysitting, between those who want order (me) and those who want to have fun (kids).
I have officially become The Man.
Here I was, charged with making sure the boys and girls stayed safe every night. Most of the time, it was quite easy. We organized for dinner at 1930, played until 2300, and then took attendance to see who was skipping out. To my surprise, NO ONE tried to get out of the school and hit the town. I played foosball with the boys while keeping a watchful eye on the entrance to the girls dormitory. Problem was, there was a sports camp there at the same time, so I had little power to keep the boys out. I told a couple of the older girls to make sure that they kept the boys at bay, which they did some of the time, but I saw plenty of boys crawling in and out of windows. I started out trying to be that camp counselor who wants to stay up all night and make sure everyone’s in bed and not fraternizing, but then I remembered my days at Wendigo and realized that it was virtually impossible to be The Man and win. So, just in case, I left a box of condoms near the foot of my bed and called it a night after taking attendance. I drifted off to sleep to Astral Weeks feeling quite content camping out with the kids.
As the days went by, things got more interesting. Sometimes there were lulls in the action. For example, Puberty was not exactly a big hit in terms of participation. I found that surprising, considering pretty much ALL of them are currently in the throes of puberty. We tried spicing it up by incorporating slang into activities, as seen below.
My favorite is in the section of slang words for ‘vagina’, some kids wrote ‘bife’ (beef) and ‘feijão’ (beans). If you want to know what the rest mean, look them up.
My main day of facilitation was when I presented to the guys on gender and sex, as well as inequality in society. What a scorcher, eh? Well, the kids really got into it at some points, and we had some rousing conversations. Some of my favorite points that were brought up included:
- Women are biologically equipped to be better cooks, so they should do all of the cooking for the household.
- Likewise, men are biologically better equipped to be leaders, and that’s why they are the leaders of government, family and society in general.
- Women should not be allowed to wear revealing clothing past a certain time at night and not expect to be harassed
- Women should ask for sex, Men should want sex (though in the group of women this statement was reversed)
- Women should be the caretakers of children without help from men.
You get the jist. There’re some pretty interesting ideas floating around here. Below is a pic of me facilitating the gender session. We gave each kid a piece of paper with a word or phrase like ‘leadership’ and asked them to put it somewhere on the wall where two figures were posted, one drawing of a male and one drawing of a female. The goal was to show that pretty much every activity besides pregnancy/breastfeeding can be shared by women and men, as the other pic shows:
And for all of you doubters who think I am just a beach bum and I don’t do any work, here is proof that I am actually NOT living at the praia de Xai Xai.
*Let me note here that my writing in Portuguese is improving. I had to prepare the Gender activity all myself (what a big boy you are, david!). However, in looking at this first draft of the first page of the activity, I still have a LOT of work to do in terms of my writing skills. (Pink=not good.)
In general, though, we spent way more time than we wanted to on the gender unit, and their knowledge of the subject the following day (as determined by group reviews) was abysmal. We had asked them to do role plays of situations where gender roles are unequal, and they used the chance to just goof off in Shangaana. I have yet to see a dramatic skit performed by youth concerning health in this country. I understand that sometimes it is good to present problems in an amusing way- it helps people understand and confront the issue. But sometimes, you have to be serious and it seems that presenting serious skits is virtually impossible for the youth of Mozambique. Tack that on as another objective on my list during my stay here:
58. Get kids to present a dramatic skit about HIV or early pregnancy. (Not like the ones below)
So, the days continued on. Sometimes the kids were alert and participating, sometimes they went into comas for an hour and we couldn’t elicit so much as a groan (Groan once for ‘sim’ and twice for ‘não’). I must say, though, that the kids overall were more professional and definitely more interactive than the Save staff that we worked with earlier in the week. Some of these kids are sharp as hell: these groups are totally voluntary- they will not receive one metical from their participation- and yet some go about their participation as if it were their job, which is more than I can say for some of our fellow employees.
Anyway, I found that my favorite parts were usually at night. The kids and I would exchange English phrases for those in Shangaana, and I learned a few new card games while tutoring them in ARSH. Some were extremely interested in studying whatever themes we had talked about that day, while others remained focused on memorizing the layout of the girls’ dormitory. I held talks about HIV, Condoms, and the awkwardness of gender. Very few of the kids got sick, and there were relatively few incidents of shenanigans. The one that was admittedly both very cruel and somewhat funny (though I kept a straight face and admonished the offender) was when a girl took another’s clothing and flung it about all over the common area outdoors in between the dormitories. The victim went quasi-catatonic for a bit before she regained her composure. Oh, to be 15 again.
Come Saturday, it was time for the kids to return to their communities, and time for us to breath a sigh of relief. Chega (enough) on the group work, flip-chart paper and health definitions… for now. I had a great time learning about the attitudes that Mozambican youth have towards Adolescent Health, and I think that we planted some seeds of knowledge in some of the kids. Here is the graduating class of April ’07, in all their Save the Children paraphernalia/propaganda wear:
And here are some other pics from the week.
Of course, more photos can always be found at my webshots page, simply by clicking on these pics!
Soon, I will get up a couple pics of one of the most glorious views I have seen so far in Mozambique. Until then, Ciao!
