Camp G2LOW Fada N’Gourma 2013 Debrief

So I just got back from a very successful Camp G2LOW in Fada. We had 16 PCVs, 7 Burkinabe chaperones, 10 facilitators, and 81 students 5e students (8^th graders).

PCVs and their Burkinabe counterparts led sessions on gender, friendship, HIV/AIDS, STDs, malaria, hygiene and sanitation, family planning, goal setting, creating an action plan, violence, and peer pressure.

The violence session was facilitated by our camp director Alaina and Alexis (A Peace Corps Driver). Alexis was a Rock Star and did a great job explaining things in a Burkinabe context and answered some very tough questions from the students. He was called in to do the session when our Safety and Security Coordinator was unable to make it. Alexis really came through for us, and he did it while he was fasting because he was observing Ramadan and did two sessions back to back.

We also had really fun activities such as a campfire (the PCVs even had marshmallows!), a theatre/sketch/skit night, a movie night, we watched “The Lion King” in French, and laughed very hard when Simba said “ça va aller” to Nala when she finds him with Timon and Pumbaa. The grand finale was a cultural night with traditional Gourmanche dancing done by the campers in traditional clothing, a PCV dance to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” and a dance by the Burkinabe facilitators to a Burkinabe pop song.

I was a team leader along with Pat, Natalie, and our Burkinabe Co-Leaders, Tolmani and Josephine. I led sessions on HIV/AIDS and Peer Pressure. The peer pressure session was fun because the kids got to act out skits. All the boys did their skits about being pressured to work in a gold mine, and all the girls did their skits about forced marriage.

I was also in charge of the theatre night and Jeopardy! Jeopardy! Was a really great review tool for the students to prepare before they had to take their posttest. It was very intense. The students got very very competitive and it almost got out of hand. We had two representatives from each team come up to a table, I would read the question, and to buzz in, the students would have to grab the sponge in the middle of the table. One of the priceless moments of Camp G2LOW Fada Jeopardy! Was when a camper was asked a true or false question, and said the answer was true, which was wrong. The question got passed to the next camper, and I said, so the answer is not true, what is the correct answer, true or false? And the camper said true. We also had problems with the kids wagering. They did not really get the concept of wagering enough money to cover the gap if the other team gets it right. The students did not wager enough, and in the first game, the losing team at the end of Jeopardy! Ended up winning Final Jeopardy! because the winning team didn’t wager enough to beat the losing team. Oh well, it was really entertaining and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

At the end of the camp, the students improved their post-test scores over their pre-test by 25%. I’m so glad that I was part of Camp G2LOW Fada 2013.

We were also in a competition with Camp G2LOW Kaya. We kept texting each other back and forth with hashtages like #fadawinning and #kayawinning. But we all know which group came on top. #FADAWON

Thank you so much to those who donated to Camp G2LOW Fada 2013. Your support makes fantastic projects like this possible!

Blue Team doing a traditional Gourmanche dance

Gender Relay Race

Blue team boys doing a daily schedule by gender

Traditional Gourmanche Dance in full costume

Girls Camp in Yako 2013

Disclaimer: Some readers may find the latter part of this post distressing as it talks about FGM (Excision). 

Apologies for not posting in a few weeks. Everyone in village started planting once rainy season started, and all the functionnaires have left because school is out. So it’s a lot of nothing in village. Lucky for me my friends Ed and Rachel invited me to help facilitate their Girls Camp in Yako, a provincial capital about 60km away. I love working camps so this was a great way to get out village and do something productive.

30 rising 5e girls from three different middle schools attended the camp. We covered everything from periods to sex to decision making to study skills and also HIV/AIDS. The girls had a question and answer session with the three female facilitators, me Kelsey, and Rachel. 

Camp Participants making friendship bracelets

 

Girls doing a condom demonstration

Want to get rid of the stigma about condoms? Make condom balloons! The girls had a great time and improved their post test scores over their pre-tests and almost all of them got a passing grade.

This camp was not without its challenges. It’s now Ramadan and some of our facilitators were not 100% because they were fasting. We also had HCNs refuse to do condom demonstrations because of the holiday. Apparently there is some sort of prohibition regarding condoms during Ramadan. PCVs are super comfortable doing condom demonstrations but it means more and has more staying power if it’s done by an HCN We also got some questions about excision (FGM). Those were heartbreaking because we were pretty sure that almost all the girls were excised (it’s very common in  the North) and they were asking if having sex and giving birth hurt if you are excised. Feeling that we were unable to give a good response we asked one of our HCN facilitators to do it. He gave an answer that I was disappointed with. He said that if excision is done badly that those things can hurt, and that girls can have surgery to get it corrected. But when is excision ever done properly and who wants to go through surgery for that again? I wish PC had a better strategy to deal with excision and how to talk about it. I guess right now the only thing we can do is to implore that these girls do not excise their daughters. As wrong as excision is, and I want to be clear that I don’t condone it in any way there’s not much that PCVs can do about it. Also, behavior change is really hard, and it’s extraordinarily difficult for a bunch of foreigners to tell HCNs that what they are doing is wrong and they need to stop immediately when it has been going on for thousands of years. 

I think that starting a dialogue is the first step. Excision is generally done secretly and I think that talking about it openly is a step in the right direction. I’m glad that this camp was able to start that dialogue and encourage girls to protect their daughters against this unfair practice.

Camp G2LOW Kaya 2012 Debrief

It has been a whirlwind 10 days. I just got back from Kaya today after having a wonderful camp with 58 girls and 53 boys from the Centre-Nord region of Burkina Faso. We talked about gender, HIV/AIDS prevention,  violence, harassment, sexual education and reproductive health, hygiene, and action planning.

We had a three day training of trainers (TOT) with our Burkinabe counterparts and one night we went to a bar to catch part of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies. The ironic thing is that we couldn’t hear the ceremonies because the DJ was blasting music for the patrons. Fortunately the owners were nice enough to let us sit in their office and watch the parade of nations and judge their uniforms. I thought that Mali had the nicest outfits made of white bazin fabric and gold embroidery (Super classy).

During the camp, I led sessions on action planning, led ice breakers, and was in charge of a team (Groupe 8, Les Panthers!)  of 9 campers, 5 boys, and 4 girls along with a Burkinabe counterpart. We had a great team of 15 PCV facilitators and 15 Burkinabe counterparts including a CampMaman, who was also in charge of our food.

This camp was not without its challenges. First of all, right now in BF it’s Ramadan (Kareme) which meant that many facilitators and students would not eat during daylight hours. This also led to some facilitators not sitting with their teams at meals, which left their co-facilitators alone with their teams for long periods of time. It’s also rainy season in BF which means malaria. We had many campers who were sick with malaria who contracted it before they arrived at camp. (Malaria has 10-14 days of dormancy before symptoms start). We also had a camper who had sickle cell anemia, and no one (including her parents/guardian) told us about it until she started having episodes. We were lucky that someone from her village could pick her up from camp and take her back home.

We also made sure to have plenty of fun including learning how to dance the YMCA, Kilos! (a clapping cheer). A talent show, Alaska Tag, a campfire, songs, condom games,  and other general counselor silliness and tomfoolery.

I also thoroughly enjoyed my time in Kaya. I visited the marche several times, and got a bunch of leather products. (Kaya is known to have some of the finest leatherwork in Burkina). I am definitely looking forward to next year and using some of the materials in the CampG2LOW manual.

Thank you to all who donated money to the Peace Corps Partnership Program to make this happen. We could not have done it without you.

Kudos to Camp G2LOW Kaya Team 2012! We did it!