Secondary Projects

This year, Helen and I have spent a lot of time working on secondary projects here in Cateme. Basically, “secondary projects” are any work we do aside from just teaching.  Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to:

Our JUNTOS group, which is comprised of both boys and girls in the 11^th and 12^th grades, has been superrr active! I am constantly impressed by the ideas and motivation of these kids. Most recently, we had “JUNTOS week” at our school.  Our group of 20 students divided into small groups and chose a theme (Cholera, discrimination of HIV positive people, sexual abuse of minors, etc).  Then, they prepared a short theater piece and a piece of “educational art” to hang outside their classrooms. Everyday, a different group presented at morning and afternoon assembly for the rest of the school. It was a HUGE hit! Plus, it got the group a lot of publicity… and these kids are such hams! They LOVE anything that gets them in front of people. Also JUNTOS related, we just had our “workshop” with 3 other schools in Manica province.  We took 8 students down for the weekend long conference where they talked about gender inequality, leadership, etc. It was a tiring (per usual when dealing with 40+ high schoolers) but everyone had a blast! Such a great experience for the kids.

REDES – our girls group – is picking up steam.  We’re up to 27 girls that we meet with on a weekly basis.  During the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about self-esteem and gender roles.  This group is 8^th, 9^th and 10^th graders – so they’re a little bit younger and just getting used to talking about these issues.  They are also currently preparing something to present (I was told it was a “surprise” and I’ll find out later….we shall see) for Independence Day, as well as getting psyched for their upcoming trip to Chiuta to meet the REDES group that Hannah works with. 

 Finallyyyy (this is one I’m really excited about) I finally got my act together with WorldWise Schools! I know, I know, I have 5 months left and I’m just now getting this off the ground. Anyways, this is a program where Peace Corps schools get matched with a school in America to do some kind of exchange. Conveniently, one of my best friends from college (hey Kalli!) is teaching at The Soulsville Charter School in Memphis.  I asked her to have some of her students write letters to my kids here.  SO. A week or two ago, we received 14 scanned letters (via email) from high school students in Memphis. I chose some of my best 8^th and 9^th grade English students to read and try to respond to the letters (remember, huge language barrier here).  First of all, the letters from America were hilarious and very sweet, although I had to tone down the vocabulary level a little bit.  Then, I had a blast distributing the letters. In typical Mozambican youth manner – they all accepted this task with very solemn respect… but I could tell they were about to scream they were so excited. One by one, they would come back to my house with questions about words and in need of a reality check that these were, in fact, real kids who wanted to here about their lives here in Mozambique.  Next week, we’ll be videotaping a little tour of our school and some student reading their letters to send to The Soulsville Charter School.  Also, veryyyyyy exciting for the kids here.