Filed under: Cameroon, Peace Corps, Post | Tags: Africa, AIDS, Cameroon, Cameroun, Camp, Education, HIV, HIV/AIDS Awareness, Peace Corps, Peer Education, Post, Seminar, Volunteer, West Africa, World Travel
Newly-trained peer educators, PCVs and guest speakers. Bamenda, Cameroon
After many months of planning, fundraising and recruiting, we successfully completed the Peer Education Camp! I’d like to extend a HUGE thanks to all those who contributed financial support through the Peace Corps Partnership — we couldn’t have done it without your help! Took a while for me to get an update here on the blog, so sorry for the delay.
The camp was a great success and was featured in local newspapers and broadcasts. What was also nice was that both youth and volunteers had a great time! The kids involved camped at a guest house at the training site and when sessions were not taking place we all participated in activities like frisbee, soccer, cards and boardgames. All of us PCVs teamed up for the various presentations, and we also supplemented the material with Cameroonian guest speakers. The young participants were model trainees and were very eager to learn all that was offered. They did very well, and their progress was measured through pre- and post-testing. The participants consisted of two youths (a boy and girl) each from eleven villages around the North West. We trained them on HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness, peer education and life skills topics, including some that were mentioned in my post Important project: youth peer education in HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.
Conducting a peer education session, Bamenda, Cameroon
In addition to teaching trainees all of the topics, we also did action planning, where volunteers worked with the kids from their site villages on strategies for how to implement the newly learned material in the field. At the end of the camp, trainee groups did mock-presentations on selected topics for their fellow trainees, PCVs, and invited guests, and then all peer educators were awarded certificates and T-shirts. Now that Phase 1 is complete, we will move on to Phase 2 of the project, in which we will individually work with the two youths in each of our villages to help them develop presentations and outreach programs on HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness.
Action planning with trainees from Bamenda, Cameroon
Filed under: Cameroon, Peace Corps, Teacher Training, Travel | Tags: Africa, Cameroon, Cameroun, Education, Excursions, ICT, Information Technology, IT, Peace Corps, Post, Seminar, Teacher Training, Travel, Volunteer, West Africa, World Travel
Delivering ICT Seminar in WUM, Northwest Region, Cameroon
A busy time it is, indeed. Just when I felt my responsibilities were waning slightly and I might begin to focus some of my time on preparing to return to the United States, I was given the opportunity to embark on a seminar tour to teacher training colleges in the Northwest. I had designed a program of ICT seminars a while back, and had done a few pilot programs, but had no way to fund the travel and expenses to take it outside of Bamenda. Recently however, my counterpart, the Inspector Coordinator of the Regional Inspectorate of ICT, a very dynamic woman, arranged for the seminar tour including all of the logistics. I was very happy to take the program on the road, and all in all, it’s been going very well.
So far, we have visited the towns of Ndop, Mbengwi, Foundong, Wum, and have more to go, delivering seminars on topics including Researching though ICT and Learning Through ICT. In short, I’m working with the student teachers to improve their ability to utilize Information and Communication Technology in the classroom to enhance the learning of pupils, as well as give techniques for internet research to improve the teaching process.
I’ve enjoyed traveling, as grueling as traveling can be in Cameroon, and have been taking in the new scenery, meeting new people and colleagues, and have been doing good work—so far I’ve reached over 1,000 student teachers!
Presenting to student teachers in Wum, Northwest Region, Cameroon
Year 3 - Volunteering in Cameroon 