Jump into Action: GAD to the Bone

Ice breaker

As I have mentioned several times on this blog, I am a member and current president of a Peace Corps group called Gender and Development (GAD). GAD El Salvador does not have a shiny history of changing lives and getting people to thing about gender equality. I am not really sure why other than it can be very hard to get anything done in this country, especially when every volunteer has their own agendas and their own communities. But slowly GAD is getting better. We have had some really energetic members in the past administration and in this one as well. The first real event that GAD put on was a musical which was put on by a group of Salvadoran university students. They traveled the country putting on the play for volunteers and groups of their kids. I wrote about the GAD musical in a previous post, which you can read about here.

Since volunteers serve two year terms, people are always coming and going from the committees. When I came into GAD I was just a pawn in the game. Now that I have some more say and power, we are becoming slightly more organized. We are trying to make GAD a place where volunteers want to be and where kids can have open discussions about gender norms and inequities.

Whole Group

This past weekend GAD put on a youth camp, maybe it's first camp ever. It was a huge success! Six volunteers brought 20 kids on Friday to the capital where we met up and had lunch. For some of the kids it was the first time leaving their communities. Some had never seen an escalator before, others had never seen a flushing toilet. (Can you imagine that? Being 16 years old and never having seen a flushing toilet?) We rented a bus and were picked up and driven to Suchitoto, a small town about an hour outside of the capital. The location we chose for the camp is called Centro de Arte para La Paz, or The Art Center for Peace. When we arrived they had everything ready for us. There were about 10 dormitory style rooms with bunk beds and bathrooms. The kids were split into the rooms based on community and gender (we want to get rid of gender norms, not create babies people!). After the kids dropped their bags off in their rooms, we met up in the main conference room to welcome everyone and start on a series of ice breakers.

Kids with their babies

The first real activity of the weekend started after ice breakers and lasted though Sunday morning. Each kid was given an egg and it was explained that the egg represented a baby. For the rest of the weekend they had to take care of their egg as though it were a real child. They had to carry the egg with them everywhere we went and if they were caught without it, points were deducted until they went and got it. I did random egg checks and they would win points if they had their egg during a check. They could also win points if they decorated their egg, presented it to me with a name and if they babysat the egg of someone else they would be paid in the other persons points. We did this activity to help teach the kids about the responsibility of being a parent. Most of the kids did a really great job. One kid who was very young (12) abandoned his baby for an entire day, so we deducted all of his points. A few of the others dropped their eggs and if that happened they were also out of the game as that represented their baby dying due to negligence. It was impressive how into the game the kids were.

This is my baby. She is a pageant princess!

Maybe I am not ready to be a mom yet??

Saturday was a full day of interactive presentations that covered a range of topics. Each of the volunteers present gave a couple of presentations or led a couple of activities through out the weekend. We did several presentations educating about HIV/AIDS, we did a proper condom use presentation and we talked about the double standard for women and men regarding relationships and sex. We had a career panel made up of professionals from Suchitoto and Peace Corps come and talk about their jobs. This was so the kids could see different types of jobs that they might not get introduced to in normal life. We had a police officer, a woman who works at a hotel, a woman who owns an artisan shop and two staff from Peace Corps. In reality, most of these kids will end up working in the corn fields or taking care of their kids and home. I was happy they got to hear from the Salvadoran professionals and get a different perspective. The panel had a lot of really great things to say and had a lot of great advice for the kids. Even if one kid took something away from the talk, I think it will have been a success.

Figuring out what exactly HIV/ AIDS stands for

Figuring out how you can and cannot contract HIV

All of the volunteers that made the camp happen

Another part of the camp that was a huge success was the question box we put out. On the first day of the camp we explained that if any of them had questions about anything that they were too embarrassed to ask in front of the whole group they could write it down and we would go over it at the end of the camp. So Saturday night we sat down with all of the kids and went over the questions and answered them. The questions were really good, no one put anything inappropriate or fake into the box which surprised me. All of the questions were legitimate, and I felt so proud that we were able to help these kids get a better grip on some taboo topics that they might not get proper information on otherwise. After we answered the questions in the box, we split into boys and girls and we opened up the floor for more questions that they might be embarrassed to ask in front of the opposite sex. The girls had great questions, and according to the guy volunteers, the boys in the group also did.

Beautiful Church in Suchitoto

Kids at Papa Johns before the camp started

Getting to know each other a little bit better

We also made time to do some fun activities. We tye-dyed shirts, took a walk into the center of town and had some hang out time. The kids did not want to leave the camp and that, for me, was the biggest indicator that the camp was a hit. Hopefully some of them took a few new pieces of information and perspectives
away from the experience. If not, they all at least know how to use a flushing toilet now. :D