Mochila Educativa: Autoestima

The Mochila Educativa is a resource developed by MINSA and Nicaragua Avanza “as an educational guide that allows adolescents to learn about a series of themes concerning sexual reproductive health in order to apply and share the information with other adolescents, young people, family members and community groups.”

This Spanish-language guide offers activities and plans for teaching youth about the following themes:

So you wanna start a girls group...

Starting a girls’ group is an attractive project for many volunteers – it’s a great way to build self-esteem, strengthen leadership skills, share knowledge about sexual/reproductive health, and have fun! But where to begin? What ages do you want to focus on? Where will you hold the meetings? What topics make the most sense for your group? There are many things to consider.

To give you an idea of what worked for one volunteer, an RPCV shares her experience with the girls’ youth group she worked with over the course of her service…

Gender in the English Language classroom

I was very excited and surprised in a planning session with one of my counterparts (CPs) because the CP had printed flashcards for presenting different types of sports. Soccer, football, cycling, swimming, tennis, baseball, basketball, volleyball… we were ready to go! Except, then I realized every single picture was of a male athlete. When I brought this to the teacher’s attention, the CP responded “But girls don’t play football.” That’s true, I conceded, but we went on to make a pile of the sports women do play (most of them) and the sports women don’t play (football and baseball).

I don’t think this teacher was intentionally favoring male athletes. My CP was just going with what they see most often, and probably some of the first images that popped up on an online search. It’s an easy thing to do. That got me thinking about all the topics during the year when it’s especially important to be conscious about how we portray gender norms to our students.