Elimu Kwa Maisha Bora

elimu kwa maisha bora means education for a better life. i think the experience at my IST (In-Service Training) three weeks ago reiterated just how important that really is, especially in the developing world...

IST is an opportunity to share ideas and experiences of our first three months with the volunteers of the three regions of the southern highlands and then expand on that, figuring out where we can do better and what areas of education and secondary activities we can really make a difference in. all the volunteers got the opportunity to bring tanzanian counterparts who we thought would benefit from the training and would be interested in taking the ideas back to site and working side by side to turn those ideas into action.

the first week was really good. It focused on debriefing our life at site since we’ve arrived, joys and frustrations, etc. we learned how to apply for grants to help with secondary education, and we got two more days of learning more permanent agriculture (permaculture) techniques for managing our own gardens and teaching neighbors and students how to grow their own gardens.(i recently made my first pile of compost, and am hoping in this next week to clear the space for and start digging my garden). we also talked about alternatives to corporal punishment which i think was really great for the counterparts. and on the whole everyone was very enthusiastic and excited to be there.

the second week was devoted to HIV/AIDS education, specifically from PEPFAR (the president's emergency plan for AIDS relief) funding (which peace corps gets a small sliver of). the goal was first to make sure that basic information was understood by everyone, what is HIV/AIDS, how is transmitted, etc and to do that PC brought in a local doctor who proceeded to bore us to death with how to administer anti-retroviral drugs, in what doses, etc, and we're not even allowed as volunteers to give out drugs, so it was very irrelevant. and it was during this week that many misconceptions and myths about the virus surfaced. the doctor didn't have the presence, that we had hoped of a very educated tanzanian, and our counterparts didn't trust the americans around them who were telling them they weren't true, to put these ideas to rest. things like HIV was created in an american lab and used to purposefully infect people, and that you shouldn't use condoms because an "experiment" showed that when you fill it with 15 L of water it sprouts leaks, furthered misunderstanding and false beliefs of the virus and sex education, created frustrations, and had an overall very deflating effect on us volunteers. i began to understand that many many adults, anywhere in the world, are very set in their ways, and closed to new ways of thinking or approaching problems, and i don't blame them for that. i myself have beliefs, i don't plan on ever changing. the hard part though is that their beliefs on this issue aren't based in scientific fact, and i walked away realizing that it would be very hard to find co-workers and same-age peers that would want to do some of the work peace corps is trying to establish here simply because they have rigid beliefs that they don't want to compromise...

consequently, the experience made me see that in order for true development to start in any sector, you must inspire, empower, and educate the youth. no amount of sending foreign volunteers to third world countries will result in lasting change. instead the younger generations need to receive the proper knowledge and insight, to take the development upon their shoulders and work towards making their country a better place to live. which makes my job as a teacher here at ngana that much more important, and inspires me to be a better teacher and work to motivate them in different ways, to get them excited about coming to school for a better future and a better life...