As a Community Economic Development (CED) volunteer I work with the local cooperative to improve business practices and general book-keeping. On top of that I work with the local youth at my school teaching them environmental education and have also started a local Muchachas Guías (Girl Scouts) chapter. One of my side projects that definitely feels like my main project when it is actually taking place is giving HIV/AIDS prevention presentations.
To date, I, along with a team of other volunteers, have given these types of presentations in three communities including my own and two others up the mountain about an hour and a half from where my community is. Over 700 students (ranging from 7th grade to 12th grade) have listened to these 3 rounds of presentations and have learned/been refreshed on what is HIV/AIDS, how it is transmitted, and how each of them can prevent it. The fun part about these presentations is that as volunteers, we don’t just stand in front of class and speak at the youth for two hours but we involve them with activities ranging from having them act out how the virus affects the body, an interactive discussion about bodily fluids and whether or not they transmits HIV, a demonstration on how to properly use a condom, and another activity in which they learn how easy it is transmit the virus while at the same time learning how to prevent transmission.
The response that I have received from teachers and principals has been 100% supportive and sometimes there isn’t enough time to give presentations to the younger kids at the request of the school faculty. As the students from the interior tend to get embarrassed easily, we encourage them to write down a question that they may have during the presentation on a piece of paper that we have handed out at the beginning. At the end of the presentation the slips of paper are collected and I along with the other presenters go through the round of question and answer. The questions these students ask are genuinely important questions and I feel that without this activity the students would only learn half of what we are trying to teach them.
Through these presentations the students’ awareness level of a disease directly affecting their country’s population is heightened and they learn what they can do to prevent the disease from spreading to each other. Also, before each presentation we (the volunteers) find out the availability of condoms in that specific community and provide that information to the students. The condoms are usually available in the local Health Center but not all the time. Something else that these students gain is an indirect sex education as we talk about the methods and bodily fluids of transmission. We also make it a point to talk about whether the students are prepared to raise a family and provide for kids in the event that they were having/thinking of having sexual relations. In this case we talk about other consequences of having sexual relations other than contracting HIV. All in all, educating some of Panama’s youth about HIV/AIDS has been a very rewarding experience for me and although there will be many who don’t apply what they’ve learned in these presentations, there will still be those few who do and for those students I gladly give my time and energy.
Please note that I am one of many volunteers in Peace Corps Panama who give HIV/AIDS presentations of which our Gender and Development Committee (GAD) supports.
(above) Bridge over a river we had to cross to get to a community to give an AIDS/HIV presentation.
(above) Bet you didn't know that the soil is so fertile here that I found this tree that grows kids. Kids almost ready to be picked.
(above) Eating dinner with an indigenous family. The lady was really a lot nicer than the picture makes her seem :)
(above and below) Mid presentation...
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