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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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…

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…