My primary assignment is to work as Life Skills consultant for Plan's Youth Economic Empowerment project. Plan has been working with various groups of young adults, most of whom are between 15-25, female, and did not finish school, through savings and loans groups and providing support and trainings for independent businesses. Now, they are moving to the next phase of the project, which involves financial literacy, microcredit, and Life Skills – which is I come in. After collaborating to make a Life Skills manual with a Peace Corps Response Volunteer and two volunteers with Niger, I now work with the facilitators who teach the material in the field, supporting them, taking suggestions for improvement from them and the beneficiaries, and ultimately leading more trainings for future facilitators.
I’m pretty excited about its potential, especially for the opportunity to enrich the projects and businesses that the youth already built themselves. The line of thinking with the project is that with the addition of life skills, the young adults will be able to make healthier, stronger, and more beneficial decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities – not just impacting the economic structure of the community, but other areas as well. Plan has set up the project to allow for a lot of local autonomy too, which I can appreciate.
My other projects include:
- Teaching a weekly English class with two other PCVs, an IFESH volunteer, and a U.S. Embassy fellow at a local Cultural Center... always a highlight of my week!
- Supervising my work region's 2012 Girls' Camp... always a highlight of my year!
- Selecting winners for a local middle school scholarship program, the Michele Sylvester Scholarship
- Serving as board member for two volunteer organizations close to my heart, SeneGAD for gender and development work and the Peer Support Network, a support system for volunteers
- And everything else that goes along with being a PCV... making spring rolls for my family, conversing with the coffee crowd on my local corner, and sharing my experiences with all of you back home :)
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