Creativity...

Hi again. Hope you are all doing well! So it seems like I’ll be writing on average twice a month from now on… I can’t believe how fast the time is flying. We’re already in the peak of the dry season. It hasn’t rained for a while now which is strange for us who have been used to regular showers since we arrived. It’s still quite green though, so it doesn’t feel that dry. But enough about the weather. What we’ve been up to lately is more courses and more fundraising. We have had one week break from fundraising and have had courses on HIV & AIDS education. Two volunteers who have just completed their project work in Namibia and have been doing promotion work from here gave us a course, sharing their experiences and giving us tips on different teaching methods and approaches for the projects we’re going to. There are many things to take into consideration in teaching methods such as creativity, energy and variation. Most of us are going to be teachers or to support teaching or training programs and we all have different talents and skills which we can share and learn from each other, for example, there is one guy who’s really good at poetry, a girl who’s a great actress and many people who are very artistic. All these skills are very useful as engaging and effective teaching methods. We’re also still working on our presentation skills, especially on variation of presentation styles. We really have to learn how to present/teach without the use of a computer, mainly due to uncertainty of availability of electricity and equipment, but especially to encourage interaction, we learn alternative ways such as use of art, theater etc. It sounds very obvious but it’s very different when you have to actually do it, be creative and think of something different and original (different from the other 10 something people!) and engaging, usually with little preparation time, lots of improvising and most importantly to get your message across. Even though I know for sure that we are going to face completely different situations in our projects, this is a good training to give us different experiences which we can apply to different situations. For example, if we are going to work more with children, we can use songs or games in teaching and if we are working more with adults we can use theater or poetry. Of course all methods are equally useful for all ages and all settings, it’s just a matter of knowing/understanding your students and their needs.
Anyway, aside from the lessons we’re continuing with community work and with fundraising activities. These activities are very good for meeting new people, networking and getting to know Vincentians better. We have also been to the other side of the island (we are located on the Leeward side and the other side is known as the Winward or Country side). We have been door-to-door fundraising and informing about our school and the Hiking Center (if you have checked out the site, you’ll see that we have a Hiking Center where people can stay, to hike the volcano or to check out the surrounding area which has waterfalls and nice beaches). The other side of the island also has some major attractions which I still have to see, if I get some time :)
Must go now and think of more ways to fundraise! I must say our team has been quite creative (we’re learning!) with the fundraising efforts, including baking lots of different kinds of snacks to sell, making hats, bracelets and necklaces to sell. I have also received some donations of traditional accessories which I am selling to fundraise – A HUGE THANKS to the donator – you know who you are!
Thanks all and hope you don’t mind my silence until I write again…
Ciao