Natitingou & Amour et Vie

After about 10 hours of travel.. I got off the bus and my first thought of Natitingou was that it is dry, dusty, and... cold? It is currently the season of harmatan (which doesn't really exist in the south where I live – at least not in a true sense) and for those of us who live in the north – it is cold!

I am up in Nati for round two of Amour et Vie training.

Mostly training two is for feedback on the work that we have been doing for since August, as well as for talking about the plan for the next few months, a plan that will get our teams to be sustainable once we leave. We set up a game plan to continue doing demonstrations/sensitization in the village (and to find new groups to work with).. and we also discussed plans for starting a health club in the local CEG (high school) to talk about the subjects that we discuss in Amour & Vie: malaria, hygiene, sexual health and HIV prevention. Our current calendar gets us to the end of April, at which point they will be working mostly on their own for 4 months before I leave.

The workshop wasn't all work. We also brought the teams on a field trip to see the local Koda waterfalls, and I got a chance to see the workstation up here in Nati, eat some local food, see some local markets, and spent a lot of time catching up with friends.

Kick-Offs and Kittens

Today was my kick-off ceremony for Amour et Vie. I am not going to get into what it is again.. since I already posted about it HERE but feel free to go back and check it out.

Our ceremony fete was a success. We invited 80 people including the two groups of couturier apprentices we will be working over the next few months, and something close to 40 village chiefs as well as the mayor just to name a few. Less than 50 people showed up which was expected. Normally the presentations my team gives would be for groups between 10-20 people.. and during our practice run it was more like 5, so I think the number might have been a bit overwhelming. Especially since was their first time out in the community.

For the ceremony, my team did a demonstration on HIV/AIDS prevention including a condom demonstration.

There are of course a few things that we still need to work on (as is with most things in life) but I think that my team really did a great job at their kick off ceremony and I really look forward to working with them the during the rest of my service. I am proud of them!

***

In other news: 
This is my new roommate. 
His name is Papaya.
His pastimes include chasing ants and sleeping in cute places. 
He wanted to write his own blog post..
But he is too little and still speaks kitten. 

Z 

Amour & Vie

Amour & Vie is a program run by ABMS/PSI. The focus of this program is getting the message out to the Beninese population about health and sanitation issues, mostly by getting teens and young adults interested in these important messages. Using the project Amour & Vie – ABMS/PSI distributes a monthly magazine about sexual health issues for teens and they also do a radio show.. occasionally they also throw events and do tours of the country.

Peace Corps Benin partners with ABMS/PSI for what they call the “Activités Communautaires Amour & Vie” – aka community activities. ABMS  wants to reach out to villages and Peace Corps has lots of Americans living in these villages praying for something useful to do. Match made in heaven.

Every year there is the opportunity for 12 non-health volunteers to select a community team and participate in this program (all health volunteers do this program but their training is separate).

A community team is: 1 Community Counselor – someone who lives and works and is respected in the community.. and 2 Peer Educators – two “high school” students from the community between the ages of 18-24, one girl and one boy, who will be in charge of going out in the community and giving health demonstrations.

The reason (I think) this program is so great is that, while I organize the team and am here to monitor the team for the first year.. it is not MY team. It is their team. They decide what they want to talk to the community about and what groups they want to focus with. I am just here to report back to Peace Corps and ABMS on their progress. The program also gives an amazing opportunity to the two students who over the next year will learn to be leaders, become very comfortable speaking in public (about sensitive subjects at that!), and who will hopefully also become looked up to by their peers. People in the communities are much more likely to really listen to these community groups then to me (if I were to give the present the same discussion or demonstrations).. aside from the fact that they speak the local languages.. they also live in the village and understand life here in a way that I never will. They are the heart of this program.. the future starts with them.

This past week was our training (a very long week of training and all of the new Peer Educators were really really awesome!!) The community groups learned about HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Family Planning, Nutrition and also Diarrhea (specifically infant diarrhea) and how to present these topics to groups in the community. There were some amazing guest speakers who stopped by, and a really dynamic team from last year who came in to talk to the students about their experience as an Amour & Vie team. By the end of they were doing practice demonstrations... and we even went out into Parakou to practice working with real people (as opposed to just practicing in front of the staff and volunteers). Even the really timid students were comfortable and confident presenting in front of each other. This made me feel great about the training, since even if the teams fall through or don't go as planned, as occasionally (but only occasionally) happens.. all of the students learned some truly invaluable lessons this week. Lessons that will stick with them.

Now it's time for my team to start planning our Kick-Off Ceremony for August!!

I can't wait!
Z