Young Single Mothers Workshop

We all too often take for granted things that shape who we are. Things like upbringing, presence of supportive caregivers and adults, nutrition, and friends. But what if these things didn't exist in our lives? Or if they were offered in fragments and then taken away from you? What if you were an orphan and raised yourself? There are lessons learned in life that naturally happen in so many of our homes and schools that we don't even recognize. What happens when people don't learn how to communicate effectively or care for their basic needs? I am now much more conscious of that reality, as it is the basis for much of the work I have been doing in the past months. This has given me the opportunity to delve deeper into the issues facing the youth of Botswana, in particular, young women.

Twenty-three young single mothers turned up for the two-day workshop run by one of our implementing partners in a nearby village. I was invited to attend to support the partner and assist in facilitating sessions on self-awareness, self-esteem, and communication. I was joined by two other members of the PCI team and some nurses from the local clinic, who were scheduled to discuss sexual reproductive health and topics on caring for young children.

The workshop was designed to be participatory, encouraging the young women to search for their own solutions and to create a sense of community among those in similar circumstance. As such, activities were collaborative, involving a lot of group work and discussions, and the women were challenged to work through differences in order to create viable options for their collective future. This meant focusing on problem solving, planning, and critical thinking - all of which are often neglected in a country that prides its education system on rote memorization.

Overcoming the challenges of the workshop model was met first with argument and then, in time, with laughter. The latter lead to dialogue that brought great results and the girls began to prosper. It wasn't long before the women were opening up and starting to acknowledge some of their commonalities (something we believe will unite them and give them strength). It was empowering to witness.

In the end, the women made great strides in both their approach to examining and addressing issues, as well as in creating a team among one another. They were able to learn from one another and, thereby teaching them lessons long deprived. What's more, the partner organization gained the experience in facilitating a workshop of this nature and have vowed to follow the women and support them as they work towards implementing some of the activities they decided, as a team, to go for. They are no longer orphans, alone, trying to overcome hardship and raise children. They are together.

This is the sort of sustainable development that we always hope for - the kind where people learn how to help themselves and local organizations gain the skills necessary to support those efforts. I am going to be mentoring this organization for the final months of my contract but I am confident in their ability to continue in this manner. I am just proud to be there to witness it.

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

“There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.”

Even among employees and organizations that are qualified, passionate, and maintain strong values, apathy and atrophy tend to set in from time-to-time. It is a disheartening truth that impacts the quality and amount of work that is able to be done. Sometimes, when these infect a single (but key) person, the ripple effect can be great. These negative attributes, then, can lead to an under-utilization of motivated human resources or a withdrawal of those resources altogether. This is the reality I have been facing.

I have spent the last few months as a stunted version of myself. I have felt somewhat ineffectual in carrying out significant meaningful work within my primary assignment and have struggled to find a way to make a contribution within the confines outlined to me. Simply, I didn't have the freedom to create the change I wanted - and have become accustomed to - and I saw myself falling into professional doldrums.

That is not to say I have been stagnant. Besides my work for Peace Corps (as a Volunteer Leader), I have, in fact, been working on a couple large scale projects that stand to be extremely influential in the future. These include a Life Skills Toolkit and an IECD Resource Pack, both to be published and adopted by the Government of Botswana to strengthen its current National Strategies. Unfortunately, despite my dedication to these efforts, my work was constantly being put on hold in favor of, what seemed to be, waiting around for others to get motivated and involved enough to sign off on my (finished) work. This has caused me great frustration. I hold myself to a certain standard of giving back and helping others and have dedicated myself to that. Not being able to achieve to my full potential is a difficult pill to swallow, especially when you want it so badly.

Something had to be done. And now.

So I had a few conversations - conversations with colleagues that led to conversations with my superiors at Peace Corps that culminated in some very staunch heart-to-hearts with my counterparts and supervisors at my primary assignment. While the conversations were difficult, I am optimistic that positive change is on the way. Why am I so optimistic? Because I am no longer directly tethered to others within my agency so what happens next is up to me.

I am now taking over and managing a number of fairly high profile national projects and have been granted independence to build capacity of implementing partners across the country. This means I can go out in a technical capacity and work directly with the providers in the field to help them integrate and actualize programming, as well as strengthen systems and organizational capacity in order to improve service delivery. Working directly with the implementing partners is a resource and valuable experience both for me and for the organizations I now have the authority to work with. And the quality and level of my involvement is mine alone to determine, with the support of my counterpart, her supervisor, and the agency as a whole. Hallelujah! I am finally free to start making an impact  in a much more meaningful way again! Good news all around!

In The Field: Single Teen Mothers Workshop Series

Last week, PCI was asked to go to a small settlement called Olifants Drift to conduct a workshop for single teen mothers. The workshop was in response to the high rates of teen pregnancies, including a 12-year-old "falling pregnant" and a 14-year-old who had recently murdered her infant baby. In settlement communities like this one, where opportunities are few, this is a fairly common occurrence.

When PCI asked me to attend and help facilitate the workshop, I was overwhelmed and excited for the invitation. It would be my first official activity since starting with them and it would be my first workshop addressing this topic. We planned to discuss challenges of rural living and then train the teen moms on long-term planning (and the value of education), critical thinking, healthy relationships, risk reduction, and women's empowerment.

Seventeen single teenage mothers were in attendance. Their giggles and coy eye glances gave away the fact that they were nervous to be there. Introductions told me that the average age of the girls was eighteen and their highest schooling was the American equivalent of seventh grade. Most were mothers of more than one child.

As they warmed up to us (myself and the two other staff facilitators from PCI), they told us of their struggles - about being tricked into sex, about their perception of gender roles, about poor rainfall leading to few crops and less food, about the men who promised to marry them and feed them and care for them before running to the next girl, about the difficulties getting to villages with schools to continue their education, and about a mine coming into a nearby village (potentially creating even more problems). In between stories, they made jokes to cut the tension of the subject. They were coping the best they knew how.

After some time, the team of facilitators began working through the challenges one by one. Our team, made up of the Education and Gender Advisors, were a dynamic duo and the girls were soaking up the information. They were engaged in role playing and dialogue, utilizing PCI's GROW Model, which is geared at empowering them and helping them see their own value and strength.

One of the activities the facilitators had the girls do was to tell the room the one thing in their life they wished they could have. Saying it aloud was a form of personal commitment but also a way for their small community of teen moms to help each other achieve it. Almost all of the girls wanted to go back and finish school. Together they discussed the realities of that dream and how to make it happen. The girls seemed to be getting the information and were excited about the potential for the futures.

The two hours each way in the car through almost impassable earthen roads and the ten hour workshop seemed extremely valuable. If we could only reach a few of those girls, it would be worth it.

On our way out of the village, we watched as some of the girls rushed home to be with their children while others made their way to the local shebeen for a drink and to see what "their men" were up to. Behavior change takes time.

The one-day workshop will not be enough on its own. But at least someone had started the ball rolling - someone had taken the time to show they care about them and believe in them and want them to live better and more fulfilled lives. That was PCI, that was me, and that was the community who called to bring us there. In time maybe they will see it too. It requires a commitment from those girls and the support of the community. PCI has committed to doing more of these workshops to drive home the information and to empower these girls. I cannot wait to see it happen.

"There is no future, there is no past, I live this moment as my last"

Last week I spent my days observing home visits for HIV+ clients enrolled in our home-based care program. What this means is that I went around the village with the Head Nurse from the Clinic and a staff member from the NGO to meet with people to assess their health and what our organization can do to help. My role in these visits would be nominal at this point - mostly to meet more community members, gain a better understanding of the issues in Gabane, see how the visits are conducted, and offer suggestions for how to help the people and how to better coordinate and carry out visits. I was both anxious and excited to be a part of this side of the organization.

I have to admit, most of the visits were quite unsettling and it's taken me a week to adequately process. Throughout training, Peace Corps threw statistics at us and discussed the many issues in Botswana but it is not the same until you have seen it with your own eyes. In a sense, I was sheltered from the reality having only seen one side before now - the gleeful children at play in the OVC centers. While it was heartbreaking to know their stories, I had not been invited into the homes to see what HIV/AIDS looks like in the raw. In actually going into the homes, I was able to clearly see the difference between simply having knowledge of something and then actually experiencing it. This reality brought my consciousness to a whole other level. As we went from home to home, greeting and meeting with clients and their families, I was struck by the magnitude of devastation that HIV/AIDS has brought to this village and the sheer poverty that exists. One household in particular paints a clear picture. Let me tell you that story:

We took an off-road path that bumped and thrashed the combi around and then turned into a small compound. There was one dilapidated stone building and then overgrown weeds waist high. I thought we were turning around to go back the way we came, seeing as how there was no room to do so on the path we had taken. But then the driver turned the combi's engine off and the Head Nurse said to me "lets go" as she opened the sliding door to get out. I was a little startled but got myself together as we approached the front door, which appeared to be nothing but a piece of tin roofing leaning up against the opening. We knocked ("ko ko") and entered the one-room building. There was a young girl sitting on the floor on a blanket and a mostly naked woman laying on the bed that took up the majority of the space in the house. We were there to see the woman that was now mostly bed-ridden. She was skin and bones and more feeble than any person I have ever seen. Even still, she kept a smile on her face (as much as she could muster anyway) and spoke to us in a joyous tone. She told us that she had been having trouble getting to her doctor's appointments and requested transport as it was available. We committed to help her. She then informed us that her daughter, who was sitting on the floor next to us, had just tested positive for HIV. (Transactional sex is common here, which made me wonder: With this family so poverty stricken, could this girls' status be a result of this? What kind of person would take advantage of a young girl that needs help? These are some of the issues we face every day.) The Head Nurse talked with the teenager for some time and they agreed she would come to the Clinic for counseling and then to enroll in our program. I could have cried in that moment. Looking at this family that was so poor, meeting this mother who was so sick but who was keeping as positive an attitude as possible, and then learning that her daughter was infected too - it was so devastating. What lessons were being missed in this home? in this community? Why do Batswana still refer to HIV/AIDS as someone "being sick" instead of calling it what it is? How can I help start the discussion? Will the suffering ever stop if people don't face the truth and learn from it?

The home visits have left me with a lot of questions and some frustrations that I need to work through. I wonder about how much of an impact we, as Peace Corps Volunteers, can truly make. Real change comes from the community and from within. But I needed to be educated and shown the reality here if I am going to have any chance of helping. I need this knowledge if I am going to be effective, however difficult it may be to see. And, in the end, it has made me even more compassionate because I have seen what it does to people and to their families. This compassion is what will rededicate me when the work gets tough. These are good people and they deserve more.