What am I Even Doing Here? (part II)

As promised here is part 2 of my, "So what do you even do over there?" answer post. This next group of projects I work on are more connected to Peace Corps/Georgia as a whole and often involve cooperation with other volunteers. I'd say that in any given week I spend about half of my time working on these other secondary projects. Most of them have come around due to my joining several Peace Corps working groups and committees, both official and unofficial. The official ones include: the Youth as Resources committee, English Education Program Advisory Committee, Peer Support Network, and Diversity Support Working Group. My unofficial committees are BUILD (Boys United In Leadership Development) and the Megobari (friend) committees. Each of these groups requires semi-regular meetings and several on-going projects. I'll try to explain most of them:

A training with other PC committees about working with and empowering Georgian youth

Youth as Resources (YAR): Youth development is an official programming priority for the PC Georgia post. This committee is generally made up of 6 volunteers, 3 from each of the current groups, as well as a staff liaison. We plan projects and create resources to help volunteers get Georgian youth involved in projects in the areas of- life skills, work skills, volunteerism, healthy living, leadership, and civic engagement. We meet quarterly and have many things going at any given time. Currently we are publishing a monthly themed newsletter with advice and project ideas for volunteers, are in the beginning stages of planning a volunteer fair in April, and we are organizing a drive for Global Youth Service Day. In the past we have had health fairs in the past, and we have worked with the Georgian Ministry of Youth and Sports to talk to youth about volunteerism. Additionally, I am working with a group of 3 other PCVs and 2 Georgian youth to hold a weekend youth empowerment summit for other PCVs and youth from their communities to teach them how to create lasting and sustainable clubs through which they can begin to drive positive change in their communities (I'll update you on it later if I remember).

Working on creating plans for our upcoming youth summit.

English Education Program Advisory Council:  This is a group made up of 4 PCVs, Georgian teachers, school directors, and stakeholders from the Georgian government, US embassy, and local NGOs. We work to refine and better shape the PC education program to fit Georgia's needs and goals. We recently had our annual meeting where we worked on creating a plan to help Georgian English teachers working with PCVs fulfill the requirements for advancement and promotion in the Ministry of Education's Teacher Professional Development Scheme (yes they call is a scheme and it makes me laugh every time). This is very different from other work that I do because it is very high level project but it has been interesting to see how PC works from an organizational level separate from the grass roots work I am doing in my community. It has also been great for networking and meeting interesting and impressive Georgians who are very active in the country's development.

Working with Georgian educators to better customize Peace Corps work in Georgia 

Peer Support Network: This is a newly created group designed to be a support for currently serving volunteers. We had a training last October, and have since laid out the plans for our work in Georgia. I am actually in Tbilisi this weekend for a PSN meeting on Monday to hopefully finalize our plans for the coming year. Being in the Peace Corps is very difficult and the PSN was created to be a resource for PCVs to reach out to to discuss any issues or concerns they might be having. The post has 2 full-time medical doctors who are well trained but often busy so this group was created to supplement their work in supporting volunteers.

Kutaisi Volunteerism fair I helped organize last year

Diversity Support Working Group: Another newly founded initiative her in Georgia. This group was designed to help volunteers and staff be more aware of issues regarding diversity within the volunteer community. Georgia tends to by a very homogeneous society, and volunteers also have a variety of backgrounds and experiences before they came to Georgia. Each of these factors can create problems in helping PCVs to feel supported and understood by their local communities, fellow volunteers, and PC staff members (who are mostly local Georgians). We have organized online discussion and support groups, in person trainings, and are working to create resources for staff to better understand the experiences of volunteers in Georgia based on various aspects of diversity. I am currently helping to plan our upcoming training/discussion on intersectionality and how we as volunteers can create a better support system for each other.

A wall of differences created after a DSWG activity

BUILD camp: This is the boys' summer camp that I have helped implement for that past two summers. Planning and preparing for the camp takes a lot of time and effort. I am assigned to curriculum which this past year included writing out all new lesson plans for our expanded camp, creating a new week long camp plan, and working on training our Georgian counselors. We are a fairly large group of volunteers with about 12 PCVs total, 6 from each group, working together on this project. We recently submitted a grand to the US embassy to get funding for this upcoming summer camp. Additionally, I have been working a lot on creating our first alumni conference on gender equality in cooperation with GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) a girls leadership and empowerment camp that has a long established history in Georgia. Together we have chosen 20 alumni, 10 from each camp, to come together for a weekend conference in Tbilisi to discuss gender issues in the local Georgian context. We have planned session on gender equality, stereotypes, gender based violence, gender diversity and LGBTQ issues, as well as problem solving. We received our funding through a Let Girls Learn grant  (thanks Michelle Obama!) and I am looking forward to implementing this conference this upcoming weekend in Tbilisi. (Yet another thing to follow up with you all on later.)

Build Camp service project from last summer

Megobari Committee: Megobari means friend in Georgian. This is a completely volunteer lead initiative to help pair incoming PCVs with currently serving PCVs to answer questions and help them adjust to the new experience. The committee does a lot of the logistical and organizational work behind the scenes. Now that the G17 group is preparing for their departure and arrival the G16s have picked up the reigns but this has been a really fun project to get to know the new volunteers before their arrival.

Airport greeting for the G16s

Finally, last but not least there are several reoccurring and one and done projects that I work on with other volunteers. Each year there is a National English Spelling Competition (NESC) which is basically a national spelling bee. I have helped conduct local rounds at schools in Poti as well as the regional round. Students and volunteers are now getting ready for the National round coming up at the end of March (can you tell that March is a busy month?) Another annual project is the WriteOn! creative writing competition. Students are given two options for prompts based on their grade and then they have an hour to write a story based on that prompt, all in English! There is no judgment for spelling or grammar so students are a little more relaxed and have a chance to do some great creative writing. This project originated in Georgia and is now conducted in several Peace Corps posts.

Explaining the Write On! competition 

This week my sitemate Konstantin and I helped hold the competition here in Poti, the committee will meet soon to judge the essays and choose the national level winners. Their essays will then move on to be judged for the international round. Finally, last but not least, we have the Let's Play Together. For this project volunteers have paired up with a local NGO to raise awareness of youth with disabilities in Georgia and help to bring able bodied youth together with disabled youth to play games and learn together. These events are generally held every couple of months in different towns and cities across the country. We held one in Poti last September and I have helped volunteer in several others before. It is another great project that meets a local need that was designed by local Peace Corps volunteers and proven to be very effective at changing mindsets.

Mom and Safi after the Let's Play Together Event

As far as one and done projects there are harder to encapsulate. Other volunteers are often planning projects at their sites and need the help of other volunteers to facilitate things. In Poti I have organized a youth leadership conference, I have helped deliver trainings to other youth on gender equality, health, human rights, and more. I have also judged and proctored various competitions. The opportunities are always available. Currently I am working on preparing a presentation for a fellow volunteer's youth group about the benefits of travel and how to do so on a budget and while young, a fun and fitting topic for myself.

Helping out at a Human Rights Day activity that another volunteer organized

There you have it. A long and wordy summary of all of the work that I have been doing here in Georgia for the past, soon to be, 2 years. I still have 4 more months to go and as you can see the work isn't slowing down. March is going to be a very busy month with our Close of Service conference, grad school and job acceptance/reject notifications, conferences, and so much more.

Thanks for following along!

What am I Even Doing Here? (part I)

My mother informed me yesterday that I haven't updated by blog in awhile, I guess she is right. Despite my lack of updates I have been mulling over what I could write about for quite some time actually. When I was back home for Christmas I met up with a lot of friends and family who were interested in what I have been doing for the past 22 months. However, since I wasn't able to catch up with everyone, I thought I would also share my answer to- "So, what do you even do over there?"

First, in Peace Corps parlance there is what we call primary and secondary projects. Peace Corps works in 6 different sectors of development- Agriculture, Environment, Health, Education, Community Economic Development, and Youth in Development. In Georgia we have two programs: Community Economic Development and Education. I was assigned to work in the Education sector (side note however, I was originally turned down an invitation to serve in Nicaragua in the Community Economic Development sector). The purpose of Peace Corps Georgia's education project is English education. This aligns with the goals of the Georgian government and is part of the reason why Peace Corps was invited to set up operations in Georgia. (Have you browsed the PC Georgia website?)

Meet the wonderfully symmetrical Georgian flag

As an English Education volunteer (EE) I have been assigned to a local public school where I am expected to co-teach 18 lessons a week with the school's English teachers. I am also assigned to work on professional development by planning lessons with my counterpart teachers, discuss classroom management, multi-level teaching strategies, and assist them in any work they might be doing to advance their careers. In all this takes about 25-30 hours a week.

This is my school originally built in 1902

Specifically, I work at Poti Public School #1. There are 6 English teachers in my school and I am currently co-teaching at least one class with each teacher. I have lessons with the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.  The school is 1st-12th grade and there are just under 700 students and about 50 staff members. Class sizes are on average 25-30 students and lessons are scheduled for 45 minutes. With the first lesson starting at 9am and the rarely used 7th lesson ending at 2:50. Students have a different schedule each day some days a class is out by 12:30 other it could be later. Most students are done by 2pm though. When a student first starts school they are assigned to a class and then they stick with that class for the next 12 years, so the students in a class tend to become each other's friend groups. In a large school like mine a single grade can have multiple classes, and although the students are the same age and go to school together I am often surprised by how separated they still are socially from what they call their parallel class.

Some of the English teachers I work with

In addition to the regular teaching duties, I have also worked with one of my counterpart teacher to write a grant, which was approved, to update our computer lab and do some technology trainings with teachers and students. With the grant money were were able to buy new tables and chairs, portable speakers, a wife router, adapters, a printer, and 5 new laptops. It has been a great improvement for the school. Soon we'll be starting our trainings and hopefully get teachers to use more technology and interactive methods during their lessons.

The computer room, all you can really see are the tables that I bought. 

That is a pretty decent rundown of why my primary assignment work is like here in Georgia. It is nice to have a regular reliable work load so that there is some semblance of routine in my life because when it comes to the rest of what I do things tend to get scattered and a lot less reliable.

All of the work that a volunteer does outside of their primary assignment is known as (you guessed it) secondary work or secondary projects. These is where there is a lot more autonomy and flexibility for volunteers to really customize their work to fit their interested and desires. This is also an area where I have picked up a lot of work and opportunities.

First, there are the community projects that I have committee myself to on a more or less regular basis. On Mondays I meet with the Access Club and we have a 2 hour lesson focused on learning English but really heavy on American culture and values. The students I work with are at a fairly high level of fluency and we try to do almost all of our work in English. Some of our recent lessons have been a discussion of holidays, human rights, watching La La Land and writing the ending before watching it, improv acting, and more. These students are great to work with and it is fun to be able to take the teaching beyond grammar and vocabulary.

Randi and Archil the two constants of our American Club

Next, on Tuesdays I help run our weekly American Club. When we first arrived in Poti Randi had the idea to create a weekly club for any youth in Poti interested in English or American culture to come and learn. We have recently celebrated Valentines day, practiced creative writing, had many conversations on current events, played games like: what if, telestrations, and bananagrams; and the youth have started giving their own presentations each week. Club attendance has fluctuated a lot over the past year and a half, but it has been a fun project to keep going.

Dima learning how to play Candyland 

Finally, my last regular project isn't much of a project at all. I live a few blocks away from a small children's home/orphanage and I have made it a habit to go and spend time with the kids in the evening when I have free time. The are all students at my school and love when I come to play with them. After my Christmas break I brought them some new games and they have had a blast. We usually work on some English and they always have a million questions about America and just about everything else under the sun.

Just playing a little game of Santa :)

Aside from some one and done projects like our trash pick ups and whatever new project Randi needs help on- like dressing up as Santa Claus, that is a pretty good summary of my work in Poti. However, that is still only half of what I've been up to in Georgia. Don't go anywhere (besides to the next post) because there is a part 2 to all of this.