Where I Work and What I Do: Voices of the Community

First things first, the answer to last posts riddle: The horses name is Sunday (i.e he left on Sunday the horse and came back on the same Sunday the horse).  I don’t know how many of you got that, but if you didn’t, don’t feel bad because no one really gets it either, including myself. 

Okay, so now that the riddles are over, let’s move on to what I think is the fourth and concluding chapter of Where I Work and What I Do.  The organization that I will be highlighting for this final chapter is a brand new NGO that a crew of past and present Peace Corps volunteers have been working with for the past year called Voices of the Community or Voices for short. 

This group all started with one of the Gumare Peace Corps volunteers before me who recognized the need here for a group that specifically dealt with issues of gender based violence and children’s rights.  So with this understanding, she started to recruit members from the Gumare community who wanted to help start this group.  Initially, a small group of women met weekly to offer support for anyone facing abuse in Gumare as well as to plan for ways to become formalized.   This all started just as the previous Peace Corps volunteer was leaving, so they asked Dave and I if we would like to continue on helping. 

We both agreed that we would and first met the four-five initial members probably within just a few months of being in Gumare.  At first, Dave and I were just helping with the administrative chores of getting registered and drafting a constitution for the group.  Once we became official, it was obvious that we were going need help in training and planning for how to be an effective gender group so we asked for other local volunteers to assist.

 Fortunately, two local Peace Corps volunteers had experience working with gender groups before and were more than willing to help.   After these two Peace Corps joined the group, they organized trainings for the ladies and walked them through all the gender basics like what is the difference between gender and sex and the different types of gender based violence and abuse (i.e. mental vs. physical, etc.).  Dave and I again helped more with the administrative details like getting the word out about the trainings and making sure people would attend.   

These trainings took maybe two to three months to finish, but it was perfect timing because immediately after the local government office dealing with HIV sponsored the Peace Corps in the Delta to organize youth camps targeting teenage pregnancy.  These camps were the perfect venue for the initial members to get practice talking about their group, gender issues, and facilitating group activities. 

Those camps ended a few months ago, and since then a few more members, including some men, have come aboard, but not enough.  So right now we are going forward trying to grow the group and host events to spread awareness about abuse and gender based violence in Gumare.   

The first one of the activities was actually today.  We organized a Kgotla meeting (pronounced Kota and is kinda like a town hall meeting with the local village chief, a picture explaining what I mean will be included in flickr very soon) with government representatives talking on topics like the relationship between gender based violence and HIV, frequency of rape and other gender based crimes in Gumare, and the status of orphans and vulnerable children. 

With this being the third attempt at holding this meeting, I would consider it a success.  We had in attendance over thirty community members, twelve representatives from local government departments, the chief, and one local politician.  More importantly, people eagerly listened to the speakers and were interested in learning more about our group.  At least, twenty people signed up as wanting to attend our next meeting.    

That’s where the Voices of the Community stand right now.  It’s going bit by bit, but it is a group I am very much interested in continuing to help.   Finally, check on Flickr sometime next week for pictures of the Voices of the Community. 

Next week I’ll be changing the topic, so check back in two weeks for something different.  With that said, I’ll continue to update how things are going with the different projects.  Also, always feel free to email any questions or comments @ jefflyle30@gmail.com.

Hope everyone is doing well!