Different perspectives...
My volunteer life in Kenya was full of ups and downs in the last two months.
On the one hand, I was not happy that I had to give up my plan to train the Secondary School g+c teachers on counselling. As explained in my first post I see a great value in that for the youth in the communities around Shianda. However, the head of the g+c department was not cooperative so that it was not possible to organize a training.
It took me a while to persuade myself that it is okay to give up on that idea even though it felt like I failed the youth and also meant that part of my work so far became useless. But in the end new opportunities opened up. Maybe even too many, because they sometimes even keep me busy during evenings and weekends...
A big positive change regarding my work was the arrival of Martina, the volunteer for gender. In the week after her arrival, she participated in my training on basic counselling skills for the gender-based violence ambassadors (gbva). During that training we realized that it would be beneficial to conduct a training with the gbva on the importance of multiperspectivity, understanding and communication. All as underlying base for the topics of counselling and gender. From there we worked on this training and included recaps on counselling and gender-based violence topics.
In the end of September, we finally conducted this training. In general, we were happy about the outcome. Grown together through the last training the gbva were more open to participate and discuss.
The exercises I prepared for the training were aiming at the
following:
- initiate reflection on the idea that every person has its'
own perspective on life
- initiate reflection on the idea that we are all different
in some aspects, but similar in others, e. g. that we might identify as women,
but not all of us might identify as mothers whereas the mothers might identify
themselves as parents and be that way in a group with the fathers
- promote an open-minded approach on different perspectives
- initiate reflection on the importance of communication to get information and to understand different perspectives
Thinking a lot about how to reach those goals I finally adapted some creative exercises that are also used in trainings on intercultural awareness.
One of the exercises was to draw a picture in pairs. The
participants were sitting back-to-back. One person of each pair was holding a
picture which the other person of that pair was not able to see. The person
with the picture had the task to describe the picture and the other person had
the task to draw the picture following the description. The pictures chosen for
that exercise were on purpose showing sceneries that are not typical for the
people in Shianda. That way it was more essential to communicate and describe accurately.
In the first round only the person who was holding the picture was allowed to talk. In the second round (with another picture) the person who was drawing was also allowed to ask questions and communicate.
The first round was rather hectic, but by the end of the second round the participants seemed to have figured out how to work on that task together.
In the debriefing we talked about different perspectives as every picture looked different. How the drawings were described and drawn was both various. Furthermore, we talked about the importance and fragility of communication, e. g. that it is important to ask questions in order to get more information. All that can be related to counselling.
One of the gbva also mentioned that for him this exercise
resembles how as gbva they get information/ stories from the gbva affected
people. They can't "see" what happened. They can only listen and
communicate to get "the picture".
Besides that, Martina and I also started to work with young mothers in the communities. Collaborating with Hanna, the volunteer for nursing, we talked to the young mothers in order to find out what kind of support they need and which of that we can offer. Most of the young mothers lack in financial support to provide for their children and also for their own school fees. Unfortunately, we can't offer this kind of support. However, after the needs assessment Hanna was able to facilitate a training on breastfeeding and childcare. Martina and I started to establish support groups in four different areas in the communities. We meet those groups every Sunday for around one hour each to talk about different topics they are interested in. So far we talked about sexual reproductive health, the female body (especially menstruation) and a little bit about (healthy) relationships. As most of the girls are too shy to talk in English and of course with adults they don't know we use a secret question box in the beginning of each meeting in order to identify topics the girls are interested in. It will take time until the girls will open up. However, our aim is to create a bond and exchange between the young mothers so that they can support each other with knowledge and emotionally. Hopefully, the young mothers will also meet regularly after Martina and I are gone. Patrick, the chairman of the young mothers group, will help to organize the support groups without us. He is also valuable for us in organizing our trainings and meetings with the young mothers. Without the help of the people who know the communities and community members it is not possible for us to do our work.
In the coming month, Martina, Hanna and I are also planning to train students of two schools on the topic of sexual reproductive health. The idea is that those students will function as multiplicators at their schools to do talks in their classes. We will also give out materials for each classroom so that students can read about this topic.
Besides that, I will conduct another counselling training with volunteers from the WEFOCO groups in October. There is still a lot I want to do before I leave. Times flies by...
Funny fact... While I was writing this blog post I received the confirmation that the counselling training for the g+c Secondary School teachers will take place in the end. But I'm not going to change the post because this shows exactly the ups and downs and the unexpected happenings of a volunteer life in Shianda. Or as a Kiswahilian proverb says: "vitu zinaenda shagalabagala" (means sth. similar as "things are going crazy/ hazardous").
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