Day 1 Training
Monday, July 17, 2006
We woke up nervous. We packed our backpacks with video cameras, audio recorders, video and audio tapes, and a computer and waited for Steve and Victor to get us and take us to the Obunga Community Center. Our schedule had said that we would be at Obunga at 8:30am, but we soon found out that everyone else was working on Kisumu time. Steve and Victor picked us up in Steve’s brother’s car and we drove down to Tuungane, the nice community center we had visited a couple of days before. We met a man named Moses, who was very sharply dressed, with whom the Abila guys had organized the trainings that would be held at Tuunagne and its satellites, which are located in slums and other neighborhoods around Kisumu. We also met a woman named Eunice who runs a group of young women called Smart Ladies who meet to play football (soccer to Americans) and discuss issues affecting them as young women. We waited nervously by the car while Moses ran around gathering supplies for us: markers, paper, pens, tape, and a pad of large paper to be used in place of a blackboard.
Once all the supplies had been gathered, we drove to Obunga, which was located off the main road on a dirt road populated by small shacks housing shops and some small homes. There were many children around who came by to see what the wazungu were up to. We entered the center and after a couple of introductions, they sent some of the youth to sweep out a sort of covered patio area to ready it for our workshop. We were told that people had been there earlier for the training, but had left when they found that we were not there. People had been sent out to round up those who had left. “They are coming,” we were told. We waited awkwardly while children stared at us from the entrance gates and the community center members swept and moved chairs and a table into the patio area. People slowly began to trickle in and fill the empty chairs. We looked at them and they looked back at us blankly. Alexis, who is terrified of public speaking, thought she was going to throw up.
Victor suggested that we begin informally by having people introduce themselves. We had the video cameras going, which might have been adding to everyone’s seeming discomfort. We went over interviewing skills, trying to drive home the idea of always having the interviewee incorporate the question back into the answer. We illustrated by introducing ourselves by asking one another simple questions like, “What is your name?” “How old are you?” and answering with, “My name is Sara Feldman.” “I am 27-years-old.” They were shocked to find out our ages. When we asked why they answered that we were very young.
We went around the group and asked them some questions so that they could introduce themselves, while getting practice answering questions in this new way. We found that many of the participants were in their late teens or early to mid-twenties. Many of them spoke very softly. One of the girls refused to answer and simply scowled at us until her scowl broke into embarrassed laughter but then the scowl quickly returned. We tried to have someone else come up and stand with her to make her more comfortable, but she continued to scowl until we thanked her and invited her to sit back down. She and a friend of hers left a couple of minutes later and never returned. Others were much more interested and excited to participate.
When enough people had come and all had introduced themselves, we moved on to having the youth tell us about the issues affecting them as members of their communities. They spoke of many issues, including:
• HIV/AIDS
• Poverty
• Crime
• Rape
• Prostitution
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• Lack of employment opportunities
• Idleness
• Need for the empowerment of girls and women
• Affordable medicine
• Need for hygienic conditions
• Intergenerational communication gaps
One young man is a musician and discussed the importance of media to communicate issues that are affecting the youth in Kenya. There was another enthusiastic young musician in the group who shared the same views. We all agreed that media was an effective way to give voice to people who might not normally have a way to communicate about the challenges they are facing.
We introduced the projects that they would be doing and had them break up into groups of four to begin to discuss the issues in more depth to begin a dialogue and prepare for the projects.
Unfortunately, Alexis was only able to get through about five people because of lack of time. She found that some older women misunderstood when she accompanied the youth to use the digital camera, thinking that she was having the participants take pictures for her, and asked for money. One of the participants was able to communicate to the women that the photograph was for the community members, not the foreigner, and the women agreed to have their picture taken. One participant took a picture of dirty water to illustrate problems with hygiene and lack of clean water. Another participant photographed a dumping area in an alleyway to illustrate the sanitation problems within the community.
Sara found that some of the participants had difficulty with the language barrier, but many were able to communicate eloquently about the issues. Most of them were able to remember to effectively incorporate the question back into their answer.
Victor seemed to do fine with the disposable camera.
We came back together and those who had been able to take a picture with Alexis presented their pictures to the group.
As we were packing up to leave, a couple of the participants started talking to Victor in Kiswahili. We asked what they were saying. One of them told us that we should bring money next time. Sara jokingly responded that they should bring us money. The response was simple, “But you’re American.” Victor and Steve had told us that they didn’t like to use the terms “training” and “workshop” because in this area, NGOs often pay individuals 20 shillings (around a quarter) to attend their trainings and workshops. People don’t typically gain skills from these trainings/workshops, but they sit through them for the money. Abila does not believe in this system. They feel that the skills should be reward enough for the participants.
As we climbed back into Steve’s brother’s car we asked for some feedback on the first session. The response was that we should wait until the end of the week to get feedback. We were not satisfied with this answer and pushed for something. We got, “it was fine.” We returned to the center to relax before heading to Kisumu Girls High School. Steve and Victor left early and told us that they would meet us there. It seemed that Victor was not very excited about working with this particular school.
We traveled by matatu to Kisumu Girls High School. He was not excited about The school is quite large with many uniformed girls. We met Steve there and headed for the Counseling Office, where we met some teachers and signed the visitors’ book. We were then led to a classroom where we began to set up our equipment, as the teachers from the Counseling Office took their seats. We thought that we had from about 4:30 until 6:00 to work with these girls, much less than the three hours we had taken that morning. Steve leaned over to Sara and whispered, “you had better include some counseling in this one.”
We had no idea what to do, so Sara winged it. We ended up going around the room and having each girl introduce herself and tell us one interesting thing about her. Someone began the trend of informing us of what she wanted to do when she grew up and everyone followed suit. One young woman wanted to head up the UN Security Council, others wanted to be journalists, doctors, lawyers, etc. We asked them to tell us about the issues facing their communities and the girls were happy to contribute with very academic descriptions of complex issues such as:
• Gender inequality
• Rape
• Lack of security
• HIV/AIDS
• Contraception
• Abstinence
• Poverty
• Censorship and the media
One girl, who was obviously speaking from experience, brought up the issue of not being allowed to socialize outside of school because of parents’ strict rules.
Alexis did her lecture on the aesthetics of photography. We then told the girls that they were going to apply what they had learned by taking pictures with our two digital cameras. We broke them up into two groups and went outside with them to find pictures that either illustrated an issue or an aspect of their personality. It soon deteriorated into girls taking pictures of their friends. We were told by Steve that we were to finish at 5:30, and so we had to cut the exercise short. We returned inside and thanked the girls for their participation. Victor then got up and made a formal thank you. The teachers, who had made us so nervous the whole time, then stood and thanked us for coming, stating that it had been a “healthy interaction.”
We woke up nervous. We packed our backpacks with video cameras, audio recorders, video and audio tapes, and a computer and waited for Steve and Victor to get us and take us to the Obunga Community Center. Our schedule had said that we would be at Obunga at 8:30am, but we soon found out that everyone else was working on Kisumu time. Steve and Victor picked us up in Steve’s brother’s car and we drove down to Tuungane, the nice community center we had visited a couple of days before. We met a man named Moses, who was very sharply dressed, with whom the Abila guys had organized the trainings that would be held at Tuunagne and its satellites, which are located in slums and other neighborhoods around Kisumu. We also met a woman named Eunice who runs a group of young women called Smart Ladies who meet to play football (soccer to Americans) and discuss issues affecting them as young women. We waited nervously by the car while Moses ran around gathering supplies for us: markers, paper, pens, tape, and a pad of large paper to be used in place of a blackboard.
Once all the supplies had been gathered, we drove to Obunga, which was located off the main road on a dirt road populated by small shacks housing shops and some small homes. There were many children around who came by to see what the wazungu were up to. We entered the center and after a couple of introductions, they sent some of the youth to sweep out a sort of covered patio area to ready it for our workshop. We were told that people had been there earlier for the training, but had left when they found that we were not there. People had been sent out to round up those who had left. “They are coming,” we were told. We waited awkwardly while children stared at us from the entrance gates and the community center members swept and moved chairs and a table into the patio area. People slowly began to trickle in and fill the empty chairs. We looked at them and they looked back at us blankly. Alexis, who is terrified of public speaking, thought she was going to throw up. Victor suggested that we begin informally by having people introduce themselves. We had the video cameras going, which might have been adding to everyone’s seeming discomfort. We went over interviewing skills, trying to drive home the idea of always having the interviewee incorporate the question back into the answer. We illustrated by introducing ourselves by asking one another simple questions like, “What is your name?” “How old are you?” and answering with, “My name is Sara Feldman.” “I am 27-years-old.” They were shocked to find out our ages. When we asked why they answered that we were very young. We went around the group and asked them some questions so that they could introduce themselves, while getting practice answering questions in this new way. We found that many of the participants were in their late teens or early to mid-twenties. Many of them spoke very softly. One of the girls refused to answer and simply scowled at us until her scowl broke into embarrassed laughter but then the scowl quickly returned. We tried to have someone else come up and stand with her to make her more comfortable, but she continued to scowl until we thanked her and invited her to sit back down. She and a friend of hers left a couple of minutes later and never returned. Others were much more interested and excited to participate. When enough people had come and all had introduced themselves, we moved on to having the youth tell us about the issues affecting them as members of their communities. They spoke of many issues, including:
• HIV/AIDS
• Poverty
• Crime
• Rape
• Prostitution
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• Lack of employment opportunities
• Idleness
• Need for the empowerment of girls and women
• Affordable medicine
• Need for hygienic conditions
• Intergenerational communication gaps
One young man is a musician and discussed the importance of media to communicate issues that are affecting the youth in Kenya. There was another enthusiastic young musician in the group who shared the same views. We all agreed that media was an effective way to give voice to people who might not normally have a way to communicate about the challenges they are facing. We introduced the projects that they would be doing and had them break up into groups of four to begin to discuss the issues in more depth to begin a dialogue and prepare for the projects. Unfortunately, Alexis was only able to get through about five people because of lack of time. She found that some older women misunderstood when she accompanied the youth to use the digital camera, thinking that she was having the participants take pictures for her, and asked for money. One of the participants was able to communicate to the women that the photograph was for the community members, not the foreigner, and the women agreed to have their picture taken. One participant took a picture of dirty water to illustrate problems with hygiene and lack of clean water. Another participant photographed a dumping area in an alleyway to illustrate the sanitation problems within the community.
Sara found that some of the participants had difficulty with the language barrier, but many were able to communicate eloquently about the issues. Most of them were able to remember to effectively incorporate the question back into their answer.
Victor seemed to do fine with the disposable camera.
We came back together and those who had been able to take a picture with Alexis presented their pictures to the group.
As we were packing up to leave, a couple of the participants started talking to Victor in Kiswahili. We asked what they were saying. One of them told us that we should bring money next time. Sara jokingly responded that they should bring us money. The response was simple, “But you’re American.” Victor and Steve had told us that they didn’t like to use the terms “training” and “workshop” because in this area, NGOs often pay individuals 20 shillings (around a quarter) to attend their trainings and workshops. People don’t typically gain skills from these trainings/workshops, but they sit through them for the money. Abila does not believe in this system. They feel that the skills should be reward enough for the participants.
As we climbed back into Steve’s brother’s car we asked for some feedback on the first session. The response was that we should wait until the end of the week to get feedback. We were not satisfied with this answer and pushed for something. We got, “it was fine.” We returned to the center to relax before heading to Kisumu Girls High School. Steve and Victor left early and told us that they would meet us there. It seemed that Victor was not very excited about working with this particular school.
We traveled by matatu to Kisumu Girls High School. He was not excited about The school is quite large with many uniformed girls. We met Steve there and headed for the Counseling Office, where we met some teachers and signed the visitors’ book. We were then led to a classroom where we began to set up our equipment, as the teachers from the Counseling Office took their seats. We thought that we had from about 4:30 until 6:00 to work with these girls, much less than the three hours we had taken that morning. Steve leaned over to Sara and whispered, “you had better include some counseling in this one.”
We had no idea what to do, so Sara winged it. We ended up going around the room and having each girl introduce herself and tell us one interesting thing about her. Someone began the trend of informing us of what she wanted to do when she grew up and everyone followed suit. One young woman wanted to head up the UN Security Council, others wanted to be journalists, doctors, lawyers, etc. We asked them to tell us about the issues facing their communities and the girls were happy to contribute with very academic descriptions of complex issues such as:
• Gender inequality
• Rape
• Lack of security
• HIV/AIDS
• Contraception
• Abstinence
• Poverty
• Censorship and the media
One girl, who was obviously speaking from experience, brought up the issue of not being allowed to socialize outside of school because of parents’ strict rules.
Alexis did her lecture on the aesthetics of photography. We then told the girls that they were going to apply what they had learned by taking pictures with our two digital cameras. We broke them up into two groups and went outside with them to find pictures that either illustrated an issue or an aspect of their personality. It soon deteriorated into girls taking pictures of their friends. We were told by Steve that we were to finish at 5:30, and so we had to cut the exercise short. We returned inside and thanked the girls for their participation. Victor then got up and made a formal thank you. The teachers, who had made us so nervous the whole time, then stood and thanked us for coming, stating that it had been a “healthy interaction.”
posted by Sara Feldman at 9:37 AM
1 Comments:
It's good to see what you are trying to do for these young girls. Women face so much discrimination in Africa and when they have someone they can look up to, they can achieve what they want in this lifetime. Keep up the good work!
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