Boys Camp Progress Report

The effort to create a camp whose goal is to educate young men on gender issues and promote gender equality is well under way.  In this post you'll find information about how the boys' camp is drawing from Camp GLOW precedents while finding its own way in securing a place to hold the camp, collaborating with Nicaraguan counterparts, getting funding, and structuring activities. 

Near the end, you'll also find a list of links of materials being used to guide the content of camp. Check it out!

PCV Project: Sexual Diversity Training for Teachers

All it takes is a slightly awkward dinamica to get people participating

Recently teachers and MINED técnicos in Muelle de los Bueyes, RAAS had the opportunity to participate in a workshop about sexual diversity. The workshop involved presentation on topics such as concepts of sexual diversity, gender rights for the LGBT community, and stigma and discrimination. Participants watched the video “Diversidad a todo color” and presented sociodramas about topics like coming out to family or rejection from friends.

The workshop was part of a VAST project that HE 61 PCV Monica is organizing with a group called Movimiento de Diversidad Sexual, based in Rama. Coordinating with Consejería Escolar and the delegación of MINED ensured permission for teachers’ participation. 

Presenting sociodrama situations

If you’re interested in learning more about this project, contact Monica.
To watch or use the “Diversidad a todo color” video, contact Health sector staff about borrowing it, or look it up on YouTube. 

Boys just wanna have fun (too)!

The GAD Committee is proud to announce that the first steps have been taken to create a camp to promote gender equality among young men.

GAD member and Health volunteer James giving a session on healthy masculinity using the "Hombres de Verdad" manual (check the resources page!) with a group of juvenile delinquents as part of their parole agreement

GAD has long recognized the importance of addressing male actors in the progression towards achieving gender equality, and with the creation of a camp that focuses on men and masculinity, the efforts that manifest Camp GLOW, another GAD staple, will achieve a sort of balance.  Indeed, it was at the suggestion of past GLOW planners that the seed for a men’s camp was planted.  At one point it was even suggested that Camp GLOW alternate participants every year to include young men.  Another suggestion was to integrate male and female campers into the same camp.  Happily, enough interest has been united in order to create a second gender camp, with similarities to Camp GLOW and a gender theme, without affecting the powerful experience that Camp GLOW has come to represent.  Camp GLOW and those who organize it have therefore fostered a younger brother.

NGOs In Nicaragua

Here’s a short list of various NGOs working across Nicaragua in all kinds of topics related to human rights, gender equality, and living a life of quality sin violencia.

Check it out—there may be some near you that you didn’t know about!

PLAN Nicaragua: https://plannicaragua.wordpress.com/
à salud sexual y reproductiva, educación inclusiva, salud materna, VIH/SIDA
à Somoto, Chinandega, Juigalpa, Puerto Cabezas

Pro-familia: http://www.profamilia.org.ni/
à planificación familiar, servicios médicos, consejería, salud sexual
à Managua, Masaya, Rivas, Chinandega, San Pedro del Norte, Boaco,
    Juigalpa, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Estelí, Somoto, Ocotál, Jalapa

Teacher Training on Gender

Have you ever found yourself wondering why only the boys ever play soccer during recess, or how girls are almost always called on when the class needs mopping but not nearly as often when a question needs answering? Have you heard teachers giving advice to students like “Girls, you’ll have to take care of yourselves in the future because your husbands will probably be unfaithful” or “Real men don’t cry”?

In honor of the upcoming Day of the Girl, here’s a workshop designed by volunteers to address just those issues of how gender norms affect the school environment. The charla has three objectives:

Counterpart relations across genders: Volunteers speak

You asked, we investigated! Some volunteers wanted to hear suggestions or advice for working with counterparts of the opposite sex. We polled current volunteers from all sectors and here’s how volunteers responded in their own words…

Males PCVs with Female CPs …

“I always hear comments or chisme about how I’m dating the profe I work with. When it’s kids from class I tell them that we just work together, but when it’s adults making jokes I laugh it off.”

“I made a point to get to know my profes’ husbands and families. And also just co-plan at times and places they feel comfortable with.”

“I work with all women in both my schools. This can be challenging at times. It can be hard to feel a part of the community there although I get along with most of them individually. I haven’t really found anything (activity or topic of conversation) to make me feel more part of the community. I work there and have confianza with my profess, but my communities are elsewhere.”

Mark your calendars! Upcoming: Day of the Girl and Men’s Day

October 11^th is internationally celebrated as Día de la Niña (known in English as Day of the Girl or Day of the Girl Child) to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. It’s only 4 weeks away! Here are some ideas for celebrating in your site…

• Host a movie night with films like Girl Rising or other local variations that show the challenges girls face and their potential to contribute to their communities. (click here for our post on gender consciousmovie nights)
• Perform plays and sing songs about the importance of girls' education at primary schools
• Do a poster contests depicting girls’ life goals or women’s role in work or society
• Hold a sports tournament for girls—volleyball, soccer and kickball are all huge hits.
• Organize mentoring activities for girls, such as Take Our Daughters to Work
• Have a parade, feria or other public event with local women’s groups
• Discuss how gender norms affect the classroom with teachers in your town (more info on this to come!)

Ira Glass Watch Out: An Expert* Radio Interview with the Coordinator of a Nicaraguan LGBTQ Center

Lucy (Health 61) lives in a medium-sized and highly conservative city in the valley of Matagalpa. Lucy participates in a weekly radio program that addresses sexual and reproductive health topics. She and the staff at the station wanted to cover the topic of sexual diversity, or LGBTQ issues, but people who identify as part of the LGBTQ community in their town do not feel comfortable speaking about the topic on the radio. Isabel (Health 61) works with an LGBTQ center in León, a slightly more liberal city, and knows a few outspoken LGBTQ activists who jumped at the chance to bring their cause to a larger audience. Isabel asked Helen Alfaro, the coordinator of a local LGBTQ center, La Casa de Colores, to be interviewed, then sent the recording to Lucy, who broadcasted it on the radio with commentary from Milo, the host of the program, and with commentary from Lucy herself.

We like what you did there, Playboy...

Remember a few months back when we posted a piropo flow-chart about deciding when and when not to respond to street harassment?

Playboy recently published a "Should you catcall her?" flowchart, check it out!

Resource: Camp in a Box

Although it may be hard to believe now, summer vacations aren’t far away for class in Nicaragua. If you’re wondering what kind of project you can do to fill the often empty month of January, check out the Camp in a Box.

These resources were compiled by Peace Corps to guide and support volunteers looking to do all kinds of camps in their communities – environmental education, HIV, gender equality, life skills, TEFL and more!

Click here to see and download the Camp in a Box folder. 

PCV Project: Torneo de Billar

Generally when we work in sexual and reproductive health we focus on youth and pregnant women. This makes sense in that they are a sexually active population, or soon to be sexually active and they are often under-informed or misinformed about their sexual health and rights. Also, they are fairly accessible populations here in Nicaragua, what with casa maternas and high schools in every town.

But there is one very large and powerful population that we too-often forget about, MEN!

They are half of the population after all, and in the machismo culture that exists in Latin America, men often hold most of the power within their relationships, families, and communities. Because of this, working with men can be intimidating and uncomfortable for a lot of volunteers. One idea that came out of the manual Aquí entre nos from Peace Corps Honduras is the Billiards Tournament.

The idea is simple, gather a group of men in the local Billiards Hall and hold a Tournament. The only catch is that the tournament also includes presentations about HIV/AIDS and condom use, and in the final game the players have to answer questions based on the information from the presentations.

During the Health 63 practicum week in my site, we pulled off a very successful Billiards Tournament. It was definitely one of the most fun and rewarding events in my first year of service. Here are a few things that went well with the tournament that we hosted.

Repost: 10 books to read if you want to have an impact

We know that the PC community loves reading AND making an impact so combine those two things in the book list below, reposted from "10 Books You Should Read If You Want to Have an Impact" / Unreasonable.is and written by Paul Polak who has brought 22+ million farmers out of poverty. His work is dedicated to desgining products for the Other 90% (the 2.6 billion customers who live on less that $2/day)

Role Plays on Gender Roles

To get the group you work with thinking about the traditional roles and occupations for men and women, try a role play! In the activity Aprendemos Ser Hombres y Mujeres small groups choose one person to be a woman and one person to be a man, and then dress them up using papelógrafo and other recycled materials.

When all the ‘women’ and ‘men’ are ready, they act out how they think men and women would act in a normal situation—talking and moving around—while another member of the group takes notes. The notes are then used to start a discussion about the difference between sex and gender and the ways gender roles are learned and imposed by society.

Non-machinsta things to say to young boys

A lot of our work as volunteers when it comes to gender focuses on young girls and how we can elevate their self-esteem, and motivate them to study, work and avoid pregnancy at a young age. But, by ignoring half of the population (young boys) we are missing out on a group of people that are equally involved in and harmed by cultural standards that dictate what people should do or feel according to their gender identification.

With that in mind, here are a few ideas of things we can include in our interactions with young boys to change the machista dialogue they often hear. These ideas come from things I’ve heard around my community and especially in the classroom…

•  “It’s ok to cry.”  They, like a lot boys in the US, are told that boys and men don’t cry. Not only does this encourage boys to bottle up emotions instead of finding healthy ways to express themselves, it also suggests that crying, which is ok and expected from girls, is a sign of weakness.

Converting English games into Anatomy Activities

In the English classroom we all have some go-to games that are helpful for reviewing all types of new vocabulary and information. A golden rule in the second-language community is to teach no more than 7-10 new words in any given class. As a TEFL volunteer preparing a charla on the reproductive system for 5^th and 6^th grade girls, I was struck by how much vocabulary is involved and how little practice I had originally planned into the session.

In light of that, here are 3 games I easily adapted to help the participants (girls ages 10-13 in this case) become more familiar with the new information about their bodies:

1. Busca el (los) órgano(s) que…

This activity is adapted from the common game “Find the person who…”  and is a good follow-up to the presentation of different organs and their functions. It gives the participants a chance to actively investigate and review the positions and functions of different body parts.

Piropo rage: a playlist

Fellow blogger, TEFL-era and GAD member Emily has created the following playlist to get you through the days when ignoring piropos just isn't good enough and responding to them proactively doesn't seem possible...

You will not check my right to move around the public sphere and effect positive change!

Resource Overview: Teaching English to Prevent HIV Manual

Education is a key to preventing the spread of HIV and reducing stigma and discrimination against those who are living with the virus. Teach English to Prevent HIV: A Teacher’s Manual is designed to enable PCVs to teach English while also providing students a safe space to learn about HIV/AIDS and develop life skills that reduce their vulnerability to infection. The curriculum focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on speaking and listening skills and aims to achieve a measurable impact on students’ knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, intentions, and behaviors.

Props to the HIV-AIDS Taskforce for sharing this information in their monthly update!

Program Design:
This manual is designed for school-based programs targeting students ages 13–16 with an intermediate level of English language proficiency, but could be adapted for an intermediate community class, a group of college students studying English or even a class with English teachers.

Most lessons last one hour, except lessons 10 and 11 which require project work and more time; however, all lessons could easily be extended to an hour and a half with more time for review and language reinforcement activities. 

Camp GLOW Follow-Up Projects!

The camp itself was a huge success and a fun opportunity for the girls, Volunteers and Nicaraguan organizations that participated. Motivated girls were given a chance to work with volunteers in their community to do a follow-up project. There were 22 girls who ended up taking part in a project, which is huge considering that there were just over 60 campers! We thought we'd talk a bit about what each girl did, as it's an accomplishment worth recognizing.

Welcome to the new GAD members!

Welcome to the newest members of GAD: Monica and Ilana from HE 61, Emily from TEFL 62 and Morgan from Environment 62! 

New and exciting things are going down with GAD -- organizing a pilot program for a boys' camp in Chinandega, developing teacher trainings about gender in the classroom, and getting started on Camp GLOW 2015!! 

Stay tuned for updates and information or get in touch with us at gad.nicaragua@gmail.com to get involved!

PCV Project - Literacy at the Casa Materna

Yet another project idea for working with women in the Casa Materna! Isabel from TEFL 60 shares about her experience teaching the alphabet to women waiting to give birth…

I was fresh to site and looking for ways to get involved in my community. I tapped my Health 58 site mate Melissa who worked at the Casa Materna and told her I would love to put my interest in reading to use and do workshops with the pregnant women about the importance of early childhood literacy and how to read aloud to their kids. 

There was a long pause from Melissa. “Well, the problem is that most of the women don’t know how to read themselves. Lots of women come in and can’t even write their name. So...”  

Resource - Volunteerism Action Guide

Service-Learning and Volunteerism may have become common fare for high school-ers, college students, and adults in the United States, but bringing these ideas and practices into our work in Nicaragua can be a powerful way to empower adult or youth groups in site. A service activity can bring together a group of teachers, or health workers, or members of a specific neighborhood—depending on community needs and your connections.

As part of its V2 Volunteerism initiative, Peace Corps has published a “Volunteerism Action Guide: Multiplying the Power of Service.” According to an article on the Peace Corps website…

Nicaragua wins award for Fatherhood Campaign

La Red de Masculinidad por la Igualdad de Género (REDMAS), a coalition of over 20 organizations in Nicaragua working on masculinity and gender issues with boys and men, is reponsible for the popular “Que tuani no ser machista” and “Ganale a las ganas” campaigns. REDMAS also coordinates MenCare Nicaragua, which launched a “Vos sos mi papa” campaign that recently placed as a finalist in the 2014 Avon Communications Awards.

The Campaña de Paternidad, or Fatherhood Campaign, included posters, handouts, t-shirts and even baseball caps with messages encouraging men to be involved in parenting their children in a way that shows respectful and non-violent relationships between men and women.

Here’s one of the posters from the campaign:

Check out Men-Care.org for more information about the campaign, including 2 short videos about being male in Nicaragua. 

Also check out the REDMAS website for other campaigns and information about who they work with. 

PCV Project: Pinto para Aprender

In Peace Corps we give a lot of charlas: charlas about teaching strategies, charlas about how to start a business, charlas about how to use a condon, charlas about how to give good charlas, but we all know this isn’t the only way to share information or explore a topic with a group of people. In this blog post we’ll share details about three health volunteers that used art and creative expression to engage girls and boys in topics of sexual health, healthy relationships, and positive lifestyles.

PCV Project: Garden in the Casa Materna

Want to improve women's nutrition or generate money for women's health?  Consider doing a garden project at a Casa Materna! Read this post for some ideas on how to get started and some tips based off my experience working on a garden project in Rio San Juan.

 

Gender Conscious Movie Night

We’re all aware of how gender stereotypes in movies and TV shows can negatively affect our perceptions of ourselves or others; however, watching movies is a fun activity to do with kids, women, men, your host family, or other community members. Many schools use movie nights as a way to collect money for a specific purpose or event—charging one or two córdobas as an entrance fee and hosting it at school once classes are over.

In this post we’ll discuss two ideas for making movie nights a little more gender conscious: (1) including a gender checklist while watching any movie or (2) showing a gender-equality themed movie or documentary like Girl Rising or Half the Sky.

Global Gender Gap--where does Nica stand?

Since 2006 the World Economic Forum has produced an annual Global Gender Gap Report. When Hannah, a health volunteer in rural Matagalpa, heard that in 2012 Nicaragua ranked inside the top ten while the US held a spot at #22, she felt there was some investigating and reflecting to do.

The following post was originally published on Hannah’s personal blog on March 29^th, 2013 and is re-posted here with her permission. 

When the tables are turned...

The short video "Oppressed Majority" (click here for link) does a great job of showing what many daily experiences for women might look like if it were men in their shoes instead.

The director  Eléonore Pourriat actually made the film five years ago in France, but only recently did it receive intense internet attention. As written in an article on the Guardian Women's blog, "Pourriat realised that the film had gone viral only when she started seeing activity on Facebook. Her YouTube mailbox filled up, but the messages were so aggressive she deleted them. "I kept one though because really, you can't believe it. Someone said: 'More patronising feminist bullshit. Keep whining, bitches!' When I read that, I was more convinced than ever that I have to continue to make films." She is already working on her next project – a mockumentary about the removal of pubic hair. 

Resource highlight: Yo Merezco and Yo Tambien Merezco manuals

Peace Corps Volunteers in Honduras created the Yo Merezco manual with the idea of reaching out to young women, ages 10-15, through a course that would encourage positive decision making, especially when it comes to their bodies and sexual relations. After the successful implementation of the manual around the country, health volunteers developed a twin manual for boys: Yo También Merezco.

The four goals of the program are to: 1) postpone sexual relations, 2) empower adolescents and promote self-respect, 3) lower the number of youth who become pregnant, and 4) decrease la rate of HIV transmission and the stigmatization that people living with HIV/AIDS face.

Each chapter is comprised of a different topic with its own objective.

3 step piropo education process

It didn’t take me a long time in country to come to hate the act of receiving piropos; however, it’s taken me the better part of the past year and a half in country to polish my response. During training I remember mostly hearing the advice that carrying on with my business and ignoring it was best, but that never set well with me. After trying many things (most of which only made people laugh at me), I’ve devised the 3 step pioropo education process.

Dinamicas... with a purpose!

12 games you can use, maybe in the classroom, but especially in a youth group or camp setting to get to know participants, increase participation, encourage teamwork, and be active. Some of these you may recognize from your childhood, as a few are common US games, but I think a few will be new…

NGO Highlight: Pro-Mujer

According to their website Pro-Mujer is “una organización de desarrollo de la mujer que proporciona a las mujeres de bajos recursos de América Latina los medios para generarse el sustento y labrar de un futuro para sus familias a través de las microfinanzas, la capacitación en negocios y el apoyo en salud.”