March 24th and 25th
During our previous gender committee meeting Carson, Nathan and I decided we wanted to hold a GRS (Grassroots Soccer) intervention, as a sort of preparation for when LR8 comes, so we could better help teach and facilitate how these type of weekend interventions can be held, so they can feel more comfortable jumping into things like this during their service. I offered up my site for our location and we decided we would focus on 13-16 year old boys, the workshop would be Saturday and Sunday, since we kept them all day we would also provide breakfast/lunch/dinner for all.
I assumed this would take a lot of prep work as a team but came to the realization that it meant almost no prep work. The largest thing to work on was getting Ma’s to agree to cook for everyone, which was super simple. Every Ma I talked to agreed to cook for us with no hesitation, because this meant a good chunk of money would go into her pocket. I got a different Ma to cook for every meal, for breakfast we served doughnuts, lunch was fufu, dinner was a rice meal, so one day was butterball and the other potato greens. The cost was crazy cheap, for about 45 people, 2 days, including the Ma’s cooking fee, breakfast cost us about $24 USD, lunch $47 USD and, dinner $63 USD. Can you imagine going to a caterer in America, getting all meals provided for 45 people for 2 days for $134 USD, that’s $102.5 a day! Shocking! The food was great, we always had a lot of extra food and feed anyone who was around he workshop (as you can imagine we drew quite a crowd), and the Ma’s could take leftovers back home and feed the family.
We opened the workshop for any PCV who wanted to come, telling them that they could come to witness/help and if they lived close and wanted to send someone we could cover the cost of the kids travel. Rachel C ended up sending 3 boys to the workshop and Taylor came to help facilitate. Being this was a GRS intervention Nathan brought his Liberian counterpart Mulbah and I had my counterpart Amadu. Since we were only holding a boy’s intervention our female counterparts didn’t take part. This was really sad for us because Nathan and I both have awesome female counterparts. Nathan, Carson and I are on the gender subcommittee engaging men and boys, we felt it would be more beneficial to hold a boy’s camp.
The first day we covered: joining the team, rights and responsibilities, gender and power, soccer equality, our changing bodies, winning combination, staying in control, and control the ball. The second day we covered: understanding violence, healthy relationships, yes means yes, and graduation. Mulbah and Amadu facilitated all the sessions, as they are considered the head coaches. The idea behind having our counterparts running the majority of these sessions is allowing them to practice and have the knowledge/skill to continue this process when we leave.
Working with the younger age group was extremely difficult. I don’t feel they retained a lot of the information we were giving them. A lot of the reproductive health and sex business went right over most of their heads. There is a big difference between the little 13years old joking about woman business and actually doing anything about woman business. I think the sweet spot for beginning age is 14/15years, this age spot has hit or are currently going through puberty and are right on the brink of the “action stage” of all this woman business. The attention span for little boys just isn’t great, we had to supplement a lot of breaks and soccer anywhere we could, which was to be expected. There is a vast difference between the age groups, it’s like this 13-16yr age group knows all the right answers and at some point, between that age and the 16+ age they have forgotten everything and just do their own thing. The other difference is the 16+ are so inquisitive. They have question after question and want to have things clarified and you really feel like they are actually listening to everything you are saying.
In general, the workshop was a huge ht. I feel like all the participants left with a full gut and a memory of a fun weekend. It also taught us a lot, showed us where corrections to the manual needed to take place, helped us filer the age range, and helped streamline the process.
The weekend was a lot of fun. This was the most amount of guests I’ve had at my house since being here. It was fun to be able to host everyone, well... fun once they understood that the door always stays closed as to avoid spiders... My community was in complete awe at all the Americans in the town and everyone wanted to be introduced or talk to them. The porch kids were the most shocked… Taylor danced with them, and one of the nights we taught them some cheers we had done during the workshop. We also messed with them a little, everyone thought Carson was my born brother (we are both blonde) and so Taylor and I decided to tell them all that he (as Liberians would say, black American) was my born brother, but was out in the sun too long and that’s why he was darker than me, but we had the same Ma. Everyone FREAKED OUT, and was like I knew it, ohhhhhhhh… I couldn’t keep a straight face for long, I basically instantly told them we were kidding, but I did so because they actually believed he got dark because he was out in the sun too long ha-ha.
During our previous gender committee meeting Carson, Nathan and I decided we wanted to hold a GRS (Grassroots Soccer) intervention, as a sort of preparation for when LR8 comes, so we could better help teach and facilitate how these type of weekend interventions can be held, so they can feel more comfortable jumping into things like this during their service. I offered up my site for our location and we decided we would focus on 13-16 year old boys, the workshop would be Saturday and Sunday, since we kept them all day we would also provide breakfast/lunch/dinner for all.
I assumed this would take a lot of prep work as a team but came to the realization that it meant almost no prep work. The largest thing to work on was getting Ma’s to agree to cook for everyone, which was super simple. Every Ma I talked to agreed to cook for us with no hesitation, because this meant a good chunk of money would go into her pocket. I got a different Ma to cook for every meal, for breakfast we served doughnuts, lunch was fufu, dinner was a rice meal, so one day was butterball and the other potato greens. The cost was crazy cheap, for about 45 people, 2 days, including the Ma’s cooking fee, breakfast cost us about $24 USD, lunch $47 USD and, dinner $63 USD. Can you imagine going to a caterer in America, getting all meals provided for 45 people for 2 days for $134 USD, that’s $102.5 a day! Shocking! The food was great, we always had a lot of extra food and feed anyone who was around he workshop (as you can imagine we drew quite a crowd), and the Ma’s could take leftovers back home and feed the family.
We opened the workshop for any PCV who wanted to come, telling them that they could come to witness/help and if they lived close and wanted to send someone we could cover the cost of the kids travel. Rachel C ended up sending 3 boys to the workshop and Taylor came to help facilitate. Being this was a GRS intervention Nathan brought his Liberian counterpart Mulbah and I had my counterpart Amadu. Since we were only holding a boy’s intervention our female counterparts didn’t take part. This was really sad for us because Nathan and I both have awesome female counterparts. Nathan, Carson and I are on the gender subcommittee engaging men and boys, we felt it would be more beneficial to hold a boy’s camp.
The first day we covered: joining the team, rights and responsibilities, gender and power, soccer equality, our changing bodies, winning combination, staying in control, and control the ball. The second day we covered: understanding violence, healthy relationships, yes means yes, and graduation. Mulbah and Amadu facilitated all the sessions, as they are considered the head coaches. The idea behind having our counterparts running the majority of these sessions is allowing them to practice and have the knowledge/skill to continue this process when we leave.
Working with the younger age group was extremely difficult. I don’t feel they retained a lot of the information we were giving them. A lot of the reproductive health and sex business went right over most of their heads. There is a big difference between the little 13years old joking about woman business and actually doing anything about woman business. I think the sweet spot for beginning age is 14/15years, this age spot has hit or are currently going through puberty and are right on the brink of the “action stage” of all this woman business. The attention span for little boys just isn’t great, we had to supplement a lot of breaks and soccer anywhere we could, which was to be expected. There is a vast difference between the age groups, it’s like this 13-16yr age group knows all the right answers and at some point, between that age and the 16+ age they have forgotten everything and just do their own thing. The other difference is the 16+ are so inquisitive. They have question after question and want to have things clarified and you really feel like they are actually listening to everything you are saying.
In general, the workshop was a huge ht. I feel like all the participants left with a full gut and a memory of a fun weekend. It also taught us a lot, showed us where corrections to the manual needed to take place, helped us filer the age range, and helped streamline the process.
The weekend was a lot of fun. This was the most amount of guests I’ve had at my house since being here. It was fun to be able to host everyone, well... fun once they understood that the door always stays closed as to avoid spiders... My community was in complete awe at all the Americans in the town and everyone wanted to be introduced or talk to them. The porch kids were the most shocked… Taylor danced with them, and one of the nights we taught them some cheers we had done during the workshop. We also messed with them a little, everyone thought Carson was my born brother (we are both blonde) and so Taylor and I decided to tell them all that he (as Liberians would say, black American) was my born brother, but was out in the sun too long and that’s why he was darker than me, but we had the same Ma. Everyone FREAKED OUT, and was like I knew it, ohhhhhhhh… I couldn’t keep a straight face for long, I basically instantly told them we were kidding, but I did so because they actually believed he got dark because he was out in the sun too long ha-ha.