Since I still have like 4 months of epic Burkina stories to record, and because most of you probably don't really care anyways, and because I'll soon be home in AMERICALAND (Four days, America! Get ready! I know I'm ready: bacon! waffles! chocolate milk! roast beef! homemade ice cream! Christmas cookies! taco salad with doritos chips and too much cheese and sour cream! food in general!).... and because the majority of you still don't have the vaguest idea of what I did during Peace Corps, if anything at all, I have decided to post my "Description of Service" and Final Reports. Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of the basic, repetitive questions that I'll probably be asked (So did you have electricty? What did you do for two years? Did you speak English there?), and instead, you can ask me specific questions, like "How is your library functioning now that you're gone?" and "How, exactly, did you start a preschool in your village?" and more. And for anyone looking into Peace Corps, specifically PC Burkina Faso, I hope this gives you a better idea of what volunteers can do! Peace Corps service is what you make of it -- it can be hard and long, or it can be life-changing and full of successful projects! I'd like to think my service was successful, and I can definitely attest to it being life-changing. Thank you, Peace Corps and Burkina Faso!
****My DOS (Description of Service). Basically, this bureau-approved document will be attached to my resume and/or sent to anyone who would like official Peace Corps proof of what I did in Burkina Faso. (The real paper document is signed and sealed.) It's a nice, condensed, slightly fancily-worded summary of my life the last 28 months.
Description of
Peace Corps Service
Elizabeth M. Hauth: 2011-2013
After a competitive application process stressing
technical skills, motivation, adaptability, and cross-cultural understanding,
Elizabeth Hauth was invited into Peace Corps service. She was assigned to the Formal Education
(Mathematics) program in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.
PRE-SERVICE
TRAINING
Ms. Hauth began her training on June 11, 2011 in
Saponé, a village located 30km south of the capital, Ouagadougou. During the intensive 14-week pre-service
training, Ms. Hauth lived with a Burkinabe host family in order to enhance her
cultural understanding and to facilitate her successful integration into
Burkinabe society. She actively
participated in everyday activities within the village community, was fully
immersed in language training, and completed practical activities to develop
technical skills in the area of formal education, including teaching middle
school math to local village children during a four-week model school program.
The contents of the training program included:
·
250 hours of technical instruction in the Burkinabe education system, with
strategies to improve school environments and increase the capacities of
Burkinabe teachers.
·
120 hours of language instruction in French and Jula
·
17 hours of cross-cultural adaption and integration strategies
·
27 hours of medical training in personal health care and prevention
·
13 hours of safety and security training
·
7 hours of administrative training
SERVICE
Ms. Hauth successfully completed training and was
sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on September 22, 2011. She was assigned to
Lanfiera, a small village in the northwestern province of Sourou, roughly 300
km west of Ouagadougou. Although French is the official national language, Jula
is the dominant language used for meetings, market transactions, and general
conversation in Lanfiera. In her role as
a formal math educator, Ms. Hauth was assigned to the local middle school,
where she provided 10 hours of math instruction per week, teaching over 500
students during her two years of service.
She assisted teachers to help foster a more gender-balanced environment
for the pupils, organized academic support (tutoring) and extracurricular clubs,
and planned health-awareness activities.
She also worked with local primary schools in an effort to promote
enrollment and retention of female students, and to improve the scholastic
environment for all students and teachers.
Ms. Hauth expanded on her experience as a summer camp counselor in the
United States by organizing and facilitating many camps throughout her Peace
Corps service, including Camp HEERE and Camp VSA. Additionally, Ms. Hauth collaborated with a
variety of community partners, as well as regional officials (such as the
provincial mayor), to establish a local library and cultural center aimed at
improving both childhood and adult literacy.
Ms. Hauth was able to initiate and participate in a
variety of activities during her service, including the following:
Primary Activities
Ms.
Hauth was the principal math teacher for two classes at the local middle school
in her village. She taught 10 hours of 7th and 8th
grade math each week (in French) to classrooms of 120 students, with limited
resources and classroom materials, totaling 640 hours of instruction and
reaching 500 students throughout her service.
She provided individual and small-group tutoring, as well as optional
math classes after hours for students who wished to do extra practice
problems. Additionally, she developed a school-wide
math curriculum consistent with Burkina Faso’s national education program,
including interactive lesson plans, chapter assessments, and standardized
cumulative tests to measure student progress from primary school throughout
middle school.
Ms. Hauth initiated a
community library that provides 12 villages and over 15,000 people access to
books, educational materials, preschool programs, preventive health
information, and adult literacy classes.
She oversaw the preparation of the building, painted kid-friendly
educational murals on the walls, designed resources and games appropriate for
young children to increase their school-readiness skills, and trained Burkinabe
to serve as librarians. She wrote grants
and received funding surpassing $10,500 to procure the necessary materials for
the library and library-initiated projects, addressing HIV/AIDS education,
childhood literacy, gender equality, and adolescent life skills. The library also functions as a cultural
center, where different ethnic groups within the community can come together to
learn about and share their music, dancing, traditions, language, and stories.
As a literacy advocate, Ms.
Hauth worked with her local primary schools to implement, “Literacy through the
Arts,” a two-tiered project aimed firstly, at creating small classroom
libraries with culturally-friendly and age appropriate books, and secondly, at
providing primary school teachers with a workshop to learn new teaching methods
and discuss strategies for developing literacy skills in their students. The schools received 10 copies of each of 10
children’s books, to encourage reading stories as a part of the school
curriculum and allow for group work amongst the students. Workshop content emphasized incorporating
arts (such as theater, drawing, free-writing, and singing) into reading
lessons, as well as group work and vocabulary games.
Ms. Hauth was the coordinator
of several camps for students in her village, most notably Camp HEERE (2012,
2013) – Hygiène, Environnement, Éducation, Récréation, Ensemble! – a weeklong
overnight camp for 60 6th graders, with an emphasis on protecting the
environment and supplementary healh, first-aid, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, future
planning, and goal-setting components. She also
executed four VSA! camps (Vie, Santé, Avenir! or rather, Life, Health,
Future!), which were 3-day-long day camps for 24 5th grade students
to develop life skills, self-confidence, and improved literacy levels. As a camp coordinator, she created budgets,
designed an age-appropriate curriculum, programmed activities, assisted with
the writing of camp manuals and worksheets, served as a community liaison, delegated
tasks, and evaluated results.
Furthermore, Ms. Hauth participated as a counselor and session
facilitator for Camp G2LOW Dedougou (2012, 2013) – Guys and Girls
Leading Our World – a 10-day overnight camp for 120 middle school students,
focused on gender equality, sexual health, and ending violence. Ms. Hauth also served as a support resource
for 2 weeks of FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) summer reading
camps, a Burkinabe-initiated project aimed at increasing 5th
graders’ reading comprehension and their understanding of the French language.
Secondary Activities
Ms.
Hauth collaborated with school faculty to plan activities for 400 middle school
students on World AIDS Day, including 3 hours of learning activity stations and
the painting of a “Fight against AIDS” mural.
She also organized several clubs and extra-curriculars at the middle
school to expose students to activities they are often excluded from and
crucial information they would not receive elsewhere, including Life Skills
classes, a girls’ sports group, a music club, volleyball matches, and celebrations
to learn about American holidays and culture.
Ms.
Hauth completed a community needs assessment and partnered with local
establishments to implement projects in: tree planting; income-generating
activities for women (tofu, bread, and soap making); and malaria and
malnutrition prevention. She also aided in weekly
baby-weighing and vaccinations (record-keeping) at the local clinic.
Ms.
Hauth taught private computer lessons, helping community officials and small
business owners to become more technology proficient, with instruction in:
typing, internet navigation, using email, budgeting with Microsoft Excel, and
designing posters, calendars, presentations, charts, and graphs. She also provided four 5th grade
students (winners of the spelling bee she organized) with a 2-week long
introduction to computers.
Other
Ms.
Hauth assisted in the Mid-Service Training of 46 Formal and Non-formal
Education volunteers. She helped to plan
the training program and presented seminars on creating interactive lesson
plans, using the participatory teaching model, and effectively monitoring and
evaluating projects. She provided new
volunteers with a wealth of self-created written and digital resources,
including: math chapter tests consistent with Burkinabe educational standards;
lesson plans and corresponding activities to teach about American holidays and
culture; and age-appropriate manuals and worksheets that focus on life skills,
malaria prevention, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, future planning, and goal setting.
In
addition to her work as a Formal Education volunteer, Ms. Hauth has used her
music education training in a multitude of activities. She has written songs to help her students
recall math properties, to teach about the importance of washing hands and
having good hygiene, and to encourage politeness and manners. She composed the Camp HEERE theme song and
also performed the U.S. national anthem at various Peace Corps and United
States Embassy functions in Ouagadougou.
Ms. Hauth completed her Peace Corps service in
Burkina Faso on September 20, 2013. Though she arrived in country with no prior
French skills, at the end of her service, Ms. Hauth tested Advanced-Low in
French (according to the Guidelines of the American Council for the Teaching of
Foreign languages).
Pursuant to
section 5(f) of the Peace Corps Act 22 U.S.C. & 2504 (f) as amended, any
former volunteer employed by the United States Government following her Peace
Corps Volunteer service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace
Corps Volunteer service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction
in force, leave and other privileges based on length of federal government
service. Peace Corps service shall not be credited toward completion of the
probationary or trial period or completion of any service requirement for
career appointment.
This is to
certify in accordance with Executive Order No. 11103 of 10 April 1963, that Elizabeth
Hauth served satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Her service in Burkina
Faso ended on September 20, 2013.
She is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in
the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under
the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one year after
termination of the Volunteer’s service, except that the employing agency may extend
that period for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military
service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or
engages in other activities that, in the view of the appointing authority,
warrant extension of the period.
________________________________ __________________________________
Jill Zarchin Elizabeth
Hauth
Country Director Volunteer
****My Final Report -- my last document submitted to Peace Corps Burkina Faso, to serve as overview of my projects and time in Burkina Faso, with more specific details about who I worked with, what I did, how I felt, etc. than the DOS. Pictures included at the end. Some of this final report is the same as my DOS, as I really like using the "copy" and "paste" controls and saw no reason to reword my project descriptions....and also cuz I procrastinated and this document was written only hours before I got on the plane to Manila. Whoops.
PEACE
CORPS BURKINA FASO
EDUCATION
PROJECT
FINAL REPORT
Volunteer's Name: HAUTH Elizabeth
Counterpart Name & Contact: KONE Gueli Jean 226.70.90.05.05
Site: Lanfiera
Community
Integration:
My two years
of service in Lanfiera, Burkina Faso have been very successful. I have participated in a wide variety of
projects, both within my project plan, and outside of the formal education
project plan. My language (French
skills) has greatly improved since I first arrived in June 2011 without having
had any previous French training, and I have even learned some phrases in local
languages (Jula and Moore). I did not
have a tutor, though I regret not finding someone to tutor me in French my
first year – I think it would have helped a lot to grasp French even
quicker. Most of my free time in village
was spent chatting with neighbors, helping them cook, making tea, and going on
walks through the village. I enjoyed
getting to know my neighbors, playing with the neighbor children, and circle
dancing during holidays and parties.
Primary
Project:
Math teacher: I was the principal math teacher for two
classes at the local middle school in my village. I taught
10 hours of 6e and 5e grade math each week to classrooms of over 120 students,
with limited resources and classroom materials, totaling 640 hours of
instruction and reaching 500 students throughout my service. I also provided individual and small-group
tutoring, as well as optional math classes after hours for students who wished
to do extra practice problems.
Additionally, I worked with my homologue to develop a school-wide math
curriculum consistent with Burkina Faso’s national education program, including
interactive lesson plans, chapter assessments, and standardized cumulative
tests to measure student progress from primary school throughout middle school.
Secondary
Projects:
Community Library: With the help of my community,
homologues, and sitemate, I initiated a
community library that now provides 12 villages and over 15,000 people access
to books, educational materials, preschool programs, preventive health
information, and adult literacy classes.
I oversaw the preparation of the building, painted kid-friendly
educational murals on the walls, designed resources and games appropriate for
young children to increase their school-readiness skills, and trained Burkinabe
to serve as librarians. The library also
functions as a cultural center, where different ethnic groups within the
community can come together to learn about and share their music, dancing,
traditions, language, and stories. For
example, one night a “talent show” was held with students presenting different
traditional dances, songs, and skits.
Literacy Through the Arts: As a literacy
advocate, I worked with my local primary schools to implement, “Literacy
through the Arts,” a two-tiered project aimed firstly, at creating small
classroom libraries with culturally-friendly and age appropriate books, and
secondly, at providing primary school teachers with a workshop to learn new
teaching methods and discuss strategies for developing literacy skills in their
students. The schools received 10 copies
of each of 10 children’s books, to encourage reading stories as a part of the
school curriculum and allow for group work amongst the students. Workshop content emphasized incorporating
arts (such as theater, drawing, free-writing, and singing) into reading
lessons, as well as group work and vocabulary games.
Camps: I was
the coordinator of several camps for primary school students in my village,
most notably Camp HEERE (2012, 2013) – Hygiène, Environnement, Éducation,
Récréation, Ensemble! – a weeklong overnight camp for 60 6th
graders, with an emphasis on protecting the environment and supplementary
healh, first-aid, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, future planning, and goal-setting
components. I also executed four VSA! camps (Vie, Santé,
Avenir! or rather, Life, Health, Future!), which were 3-day-long day camps for
24 5th grade students to develop life skills, self-confidence, and
improved literacy levels. As a camp
coordinator, I created budgets, designed an age-appropriate curriculum,
programmed activities, assisted with the writing of camp manuals and
worksheets, served as a community liaison, delegated tasks, and evaluated
results. Furthermore, I participated as a counselor and session
facilitator for Camp G2LOW Dedougou (2012, 2013) – Guys and Girls
Leading Our World – a 10-day overnight camp for 120 middle school students,
focused on gender equality, sexual health, and ending violence. I also served as a support resource for 2
weeks of FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) summer reading camps, a
Burkinabe-initiated project aimed at increasing 5th graders’ reading
comprehension and their understanding of the French language.
Projects in Process: CLE Entreprise (Centre de Lecture et d’Eveil)
As CLE (the
library) started to function, it was realized that CLE would need a consistent
source of income to provide basic materials (such as chalk) and pay for needs, like
the guardian and electricity. We wanted
CLE to be independent from the local government, NGO’s, and schools, in order
to best serve the entire community and not have fear that a financial supporter
would “fall through” and leave the library unable to support its basic
operations. Thus, IGAs were set up with
profits going to the library.
Preschool: The
preschool is being held at the library during hours when the library is not
utilized, specifically: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from
15:00-18:00. During these hours,
children and teachers are at school, and many other people (i.e. functionaires)
are at jobs also. The library is thus
not used. Parents registered their
preschool children for one afternoon a week, creating four different groups of
30 children each group. Each time the
child comes, he must wear his nametag (which includes the parents' names and
cell phone numbers on the back), the parent must sign the child in, and 100 CFA
must be deposited for the day. By
requiring this small fee, the preschool teacher is able to be paid each day,
and some money is able to be saved for the library and buying new supplies. Also, an official “formal” preschool is being
held in the mornings, from 8am to noon.
Children in this preschool attend 4 days a week (Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Friday), wear a uniform, eat a snack, and pay a fee of 40.000
CFA for the year.
Kiosque: A kiosque
was established right next to CLE. Here,
sandwiches, Nescafe, tea, omelets, bread, and more can be bought. Also, a daily newspaper from Ouaga has been
commanded, and so customers can read the paper when they come for their
breakfast or lunch. Because of the
kiosque’s immediate popularity, rice and spaghetti have also been added to the
menu, as well as cigarettes and alcohol, both of which have a very high profit
margin (compared to food). Furthermore,
Salimata, the young lady managing the kiosque, has now learned to make tofu.
Village Bread Bakery: A village
bread bakery was created in order to have a fresh bread source and supply the
kiosque with bread for its sandwiches.
Also, despite Guiedougou/Lanfiera being quite big, there was no one who
made bread. All bread comes from Tougan,
42 kilometers away. CLE’s guardian had
worked in a village bread operation when he was younger, and so he was able to
gain another job with CLE as the baker.
Night Class: Every
evening, Monday through Friday, CLE holds night classes for adults who never
finished (or attended) primary school. A
local primary school teacher is teaching the class, with a small monetary
benefit provided by the participants.
Each participant pays 1.000 CFA per month, and half goes to the teacher
and the other half goes to CLE to help pay for electricity and other expenses.
Women’s Jula Class: Monday,
Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, 30 women meet at the library to learn how to
read and write Jula. Like the night
classes, each woman contributes 1.000 CFA per month, and half goes to pay the
teacher and the half is for the library.
Garden: Yet another
IGA for CLE includes a library. Because
CLE is fenced-in, it is protected from animals and thus is a safe spot to have
a garden. This past rainy season,
cucumbers and squash were grown and sold in the local marché. Some of the produce also goes to the kiosque
to put on sandwiches or in the vegetable sauce over rice.
Grants/Funding:
Please see
the attachment below, which explains the four grants I wrote with my sitemate, Molly
Morrison, along with photos of the projects.
Site
Replacement:
I am both
excited and relieved to know that a health volunteer will be coming to Lanfiera
in December 2013 – just a few months after I COS. The staff at the CSPS are wonderful, and were
some of my first friends in village.
They’ve donated their time to help facilitate health sensibilisations
and work at Camp HEERE, and they’ve also given their time to just hang out with
me, braid my hair, make me delicious food, and practice speaking French (while
they practiced English). The house
should be ready to go and in good shape, and everyone in the community has been
informed for several months before my departure, that more than likely a new
American would be coming in December and would be living in my house.
On the other
hand, I am very disappointed that Molly’s site seems to have been
overlooked. We have spent so much time
and energy into making the library a possibility, that it’s frustrating to know
that there is no one to help the library association through its first year of
operations, in terms of monitoring and evaluation. Hopefully the future health volunteer in
Lanfiera will get involved with the library, but it’s still not the same as
having a volunteer specifically assigned to the library.
****Attachment: Grant Write-ups and Photos
Projects and Grants by Elizabeth Hauth and Molly Morrison
Throughout our two years of Peace Corps service in Burkina Faso, my
sitemate (Molly) and I have focused on improving literacy within our community. This was done by working with village
counterparts to create a community library, holding numerous reading camps for
elementary students, incorporating books into heath formations, training
teachers and introducing new teaching techniques, and more. We requested and received funding for four
separate literacy-related projects, and all of our activities easily fall under
one (if not more) of our projects:
Literacy Through the Arts….PCPP
Community Library…..PCPP
Early Childhood Education (at the library)….SPA-GAD
Health Awareness Campaign (at the library)….SPA-HIV/AIDS
To date, Molly and I have organized and participated in the following
activities: three 3-day reading camps; four 1-day reading camps; an America
Day; women’s Jula classes; preschool activities; teacher workshops; co-teaching
literacy lessons; health campaigns for women and youth (infant malnutrition,
hygiene, food safety, HIV/AIDS, family planning, puberty, sexual health,
malaria, dental care, and first-aid); two 4-day overnight camps focused on the
environment and goal-setting; and probably a few more things that we’re
forgetting to mention.
The following pictures are just a few of the many highlights from our
projects -- those rare but special moments captured by camera. If you would like to see more pictures or to
have further details about any specific picture or story, I’d be happy to send
more photos and stories your way. Also,
if you would like the actual photo file (jpeg), I can try to email that to you
also (providing the Burkinabe internet cooperates); please let me know which
photos specifically to email. (It will take me anywhere from 5-20 minutes to
upload each photo.)
Literacy
Through the Arts (LTA)….PCPP
Literacy Through the Arts (LTA) was a project designed to provide each
of three local elementary schools with a set of age-appropriate picture books
and basic “Literacy through the Arts” materials (i.e. some arts and crafts
supplies, like paper and crayons). It
was accompanied by a teacher workshop for the schools’ teachers and
directors. LTA provided students with
improved learning opportunities to develop reading and critical thinking skills;
at the same time it strengthened the capacity of teachers to successfully and
creatively teach literacy. This project
addressed many of the community’s concerns, including: improving schools and
children’s education; learning how to read; increasing access to books;
incorporating health, hygiene, and other basic life skills into school curriculum;
and training teachers.
The official LTA teacher training was held on June 20, 2013, with 19
teachers from several nearby schools and 3 school directors participating. However, co-teaching, pedagogical
discussions, lesson sharing, and reading camps had been happening since
December 2012 with some of the participants.
Other Literacy Through the Arts activities captured on camera include
using music to practice saying new vocabulary words (above left), discussing
the lyrics of a song about good hygiene practices (above right), and organizing
desks in clusters to facilitate group work.
The photo below (left) is of PCV Careth Davis in her village’s primary
school; Toumbila is 10km from my village and two teachers from Toumbila
participated in the project.
Yet another teaching technique introduced was group reading (above right). Students, in partners or small groups, read a
story together aloud, with a copy of the book for each student (or pair of
students). This allows everyone to follow
along with the words and pay attention to their spellings, to look closely at
the pictures, and to help each other with pronunciation. This is extremely important when learning to
read in any language, but especially in French, where many words are pronounced
the same, whether masculine or feminine, singular or plural, or even just
entirely different words altogether. For
example, eau (water) and au (to the, singular) and aux
(to the, plural) are all pronounced the exact same way. How confusing, especially for a child who
rarely, if ever, visually sees the words they are hearing and speaking!
Community
Library…..PCPP
The Literacy Through the Arts (LTA) project was accompanied (and
enhanced) by the development of a community library. When LTA was in its initial stages of being
planned and discussed, there was no library, or even the idea of creating a
library – creating a community library seemed unfeasible and much too large of
a project to take on, and that was precisely why LTA was started. LTA gave school teachers and students access
to a small set of books to be used in the classroom. But, as teachers grew more and more
interested about LTA and children’s books, the desire to have a library was
expressed. This sparked community
interest, and before we knew it, plans for a REAL library to be used by the
entire community were formed, a library association was created, grant requests
were written and funded, and a library was started!
It’s been a lot of work, but the library is now open for business! It’s been the perfect venue to conduct LTA
activities and reading camps for students, along with many other things. (Please
see attached “Thank you for library” file for more specific information about
the library, i.e. its name and operations.
This was the letter that was recently sent to our donors, friends, and
family.)
above left: Reading camp for 3rd graders. They are reading a “Bouba and Zaza” story
about the importance of washing hands and having good hygiene. above right: Reading camp for 5th graders. I’m reading a pop-up book about ocean
animals. They absolutely LOVE pop-up
books because the images jump out at them.
During this particular book, the students were fascinated by the idea
that not everything that lives in the ocean goes by the name “fish.” We learned a lot of new things that day! bottom left: PCV Molly Morrison (my
sitemate) explaining the meaning of “pollution” to a small group. They had never heard or seen that word
before. bottom right: “Whoa! Hippos!”
The kids always get really excited when they recognize a picture and
know the name of it in both French and their local language.
above left: Happy kids reading books that are from and about Burkina Faso. These books were printed by FAVL (Friends of
African Village Libraries) and all photos and stories are from Burkina and
written in Burkinabe French, and sometimes also in local language. Topics include: “The Market,” “How to Make a
Drum,” “Animals in Burkina,” and more. above
right: Middle school students who
meet for Theater Club at the library. bottom left: Elementary students
proudly showing their newly acquired library cards. bottom right: Me, Zephirin Gouabe (President of the Library
Association), and Molly Morrison showcasing some of our favorite books
available at the library.
Early
Childhood Education (at the library)….SPA-GAD
Once the library was up and running, we took things to the next level:
preschool. There are very limited
resources and opportunities for young children in Burkina Faso, and this
inhibits their ability to succeed once they start primary school at age 6 or
7. They do not know their letters or
numbers in local language, and certainly not in French, when they arrive at
primary school. They can’t write or even
copy letters (motor skills) and many often don’t know their own name or how to
identify their written name on a piece a paper.
In order to address these needs, books aimed specifically at young
children were added to the library, as well as other intellectually stimulating
resources, such as colored blocks made by the local carpenter. Young children who do not yet attend school
(and even those who do go to school!) are now able to look at the books in the
library, play with the materials, practice motor and social skills, and develop
school-readiness skills with the support of parents, student mentors, older
siblings, and teachers during open library hours. An official preschool/daycare will be
starting this October, taught by a qualified (and university-educated) woman
who has lived in the village for years but didn’t have a job.
Above
photos: Adult
volunteers at the library play with the preschool-aged children, giving
structured learning activities. “Find me
all the yellow blocks…. Now find me a
block with the letter A.” Below photos: Drawing time in the preschool room! Also, they are practicing sharing
crayons. Initially kids were very
possessive and had a difficult time sharing colors, and so we had to give each
child 2 or 3 crayons only and tell them they couldn’t use anyone else’s crayons
except their own. Now we can place the
crayons at the center of the table for everyone; they choose one color at a
time and put it back in the center when they are done
photos above: Fatimata and I play with blocks…until she
decided that she didn’t like me anymore.
Good thing her mom was standing nearby. Below left: It’s not surprising to see an 8-year-old walking
alone down the road, bringing his or her four younger siblings – even the
babies! – to the library for a morning of fun activities. Parents are often too busy working in the
fields to accompany their children. Below middle & right: But sometimes parents (usually mothers) do
come with their children, or at least stop by to pick them up and see what the
children are learning.
Health
Awareness Campaign (at the library)….SPA-HIV/AIDS
An additional project sponsored and hosted by the library involved a
series of health campaigns. As
identified by the community, many individuals had expressed great interest in
combating the health issues that they face on a regular basis, from teachers to
farmers to business owners to students. Health problems affect everyone and
because of this many community members would like to be educated on these
issues in order to better protect themselves and their families. The population of the community and its
surrounding villages is roughly 18,000 people, and the area is situated close
to a river, which means that the rate of malaria is one of the highest in the
country. Furthermore, this community is host to an international market and a
number of high-traffic construction projects so there is a large population of
unattached men moving through this area. With the recent political trouble in
Mali, the area has seen a flux in strangers passing through. These issues have
contributed to increased incidents of prostitution which raises the risk of
HIV/AIDS for everyone in the community.
Health problems like malaria, AIDS, hygiene, and nutrition have been
identified as high priorities for the people in this area. It is particularly
important that the young people in this region learn how diseases are
transmitted and how they can protect themselves and reduce the frequency of
illness in their community, and so a series of health formations and day camps
for 5-8th graders has been held.
Top photos: Women learned about preventing malnutrition
in their babies and young children. As
part of the formation, they got to try enriched porridge, a source of vitamins
and protein, that they can easily make on their own with locally found ingredients. Some of the children liked it; others weren’t
so fond of the new food. Bottom:
A boy reads a children’s book about HIV/AIDS, following a group lesson
on HIV/AIDS and reducing stigma.
Other
photos….
Top
left: Me, walking
down the road with students, in order to get from the primary school to the
library about 2 km away. Twenty students
were chosen at random from the class to participate in the reading day camp. I had to pick them up at the school, since
the library was still quite new and they didn’t yet know where it was. Top
right: Story time after lunch. Since it was the week of Christmas, we read
“Christmas around the World.” This
particular page was about celebrating Christmas in Japan, and the students loved
analyzing the colorful photos: “Look!
They don’t sit on chairs, like us!
They drink tea, just like us!” Bottom left: Me, working with a student one-on-one during
the reading day camp. Bottom
right: Molly taking the time
to jump rope with campers during the afternoon break of an overnight camp
Top left: Jula literacy class for women. While the women learn to read and write in
their local language, their young children are inside the library building
reading books, coloring, and doing puzzles.
Top right: PCV Careth Davis brought her Life Skills Club
comprised of 3-4th graders to the library for a day of reading and
learning about America. The students
left their village at 6am to bike the 10 km to the library, yet when they
arrived, they weren’t the least bit tired because they were so excited to see a
library for the first time in their lives.
We read books in French about the USA, used maps to locate our home
states (Careth is from Vermont; I’m from Minnesota), learned some English words
and sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in both French and English,
discussed what a library is and what one can do at a library, and more. Bottom:
Molly reads a pop-up book under the library’s big shade tree. I’m sitting with the kids.
