You may wonder what these things have in common. The genius volunteers of Prey Veng province found a way to join them together, while some remained skeptical. When planning our province's first Camp G.L.O.W. (Girls Leading Our World), we decided to keep it as simple as possible: we kept it to 1 night and 2 days and tried to utilize the resources PV has to offer us. We invited an American volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee to show the girls how to use art to illustrate their strengths, a KOICA (Korea's PC) volunteer to lead a session on healthy habits, Youth Council of Cambodia to discuss leadership, Khmer friends and counterparts to explain healthy relationships and signs of domestic abuse, a nearby Youthstar volunteer (Khmer volunteer organization) to discuss the importance of volunteering in their own communities, and an American friend working for KHANA in Phnom Penh to lead a session on reproductive health. Where needed the volunteers jumped in to lead sessions on exercise, yoga, nighttime games in the park (water balloon toss and an intense game of soccer), "girly bonding" (friendship bracelet making and painting nails extravaganza), career and educational opportunities and the highlight for many - a newspaper fashion show which took place within the last 30 minutes of the camp. The 5 volunteers from across Prey Veng province came with an entourage of 10 girls each and a counterpart to help facilitate activities as the majority of the camp was conducted in Khmer.
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| The higher education/career planning workshop |
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| During the abusive relationships session, the girls completed the phrases "Love is..." and "Love is not..." |
It was a whirlwhind 32 hours; the high of being surrounded by fifty 10th-12th grade girls, working with 4 other volunteers and various counterparts and facilitators, coordinating materials for sessions and keeping to a tight schedule was a huge change of pace from the last 10 months of work. I had some flashes back to the last two years when I took my 7th graders in Boston on their year end trip to Philadelphia. The stresses were different, but the youthful exuberance of working with a large group of engaged students was very reminiscent. Although we taped the doors of our girls as we did our good night check, I wasn't concerned they would try to sneak out to explore the town like my rambunctious middle schoolers. Similarly, it was the first time many of these girls had been to Prey Veng town, which is only roughly 40 km from the farthest village, and it was the first time many of my 7th graders had seen a city beyond Boston. It was an opportunity for the girls to step out of their comfort zone as most have never spent the night away from their home. They made new friends and demonstrated trust for them within hours of meeting one another when it came to discussing sensitive topics and sharing a hotel room. Most importantly, it was a rare environment separate from male students, siblings and parents to be themselves and talk about topics that are not usually open to discussion. They had the opportunity to have their voice be heard and to receive answers from adults who are there to answer their questions and support them.
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| A student explaining her strengths from her "power collage" |
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| My crew of girls, 8 come from the orphange I work at and 2 are my teacher trainees |
Often times I wonder how my experience as a trained teacher specifically for American "No Excuses" charter schools comes into play in the Cambodian education system. The style of teaching and learning the students are accustomed to is far from my Boston classroom for the last 3 years. Something my colleagues and I would try to incorporate into every lesson and the structure of our class in America is something called "J-factor" which stands for "Joy Factor". It always seemed kind of sad that I had to plan joy into my classes because I always thought the joy they should get from learning should be sufficient. I used my stuffed animal (his name is "Tray", you can see him below) as a student in my classes to show them that I'm not always
so serious. The idea is that this "J-factor" should keep the students interested and engaged because they're having some fun with their learning. I often forget that Cambodian students, like all kids, just want to have some fun as they are very obedient and respectful of the teacher (for the most part) seemingly naturally. Nonetheless, that's where our friend the velociraptor comes in...Some of us in Prey Veng call ourselves "the Prey Veng velociraptors" for alliterative purposes and because who doesn't love dinosaurs? When designing the shirt we decided that the dino should be included somewhere in a subtle fashion. Although I for some reason see pink as an evil color, I gave into this "Barbie" pink which the girls were thrilled about. I think the combination of the subtle dinosaur on a background of hot pink lava turned out rather well. Initially we didn't much consider how the girls would take to our beloved dinosaur, but within the first few minutes of the camp, Diana began to explain the velociraptor to the girls. Some quickly embraced it by drawing it onto their name tags while others said they were afraid of it even though we tried to explain that they are extinct. We started making velociraptor roars intermittently throughout the camp and the girls quickly followed suit mimicking our dinosaur cry. I think of it as one of those camp "inside jokes" that the girls will take back to their communities and laugh over with their friends. It was also a chance for the girls do get a little weird in an environment where that was encouraged.
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| Tray came to Cambodia to meet his friend the velociraptor, even my 20 year old teacher trainees like him |
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| The G.L.O.W. Velociraptors doing their best dinosaur cry |
I want to send the gratitude from all the girls, the volunteers and our Khmer counterparts to the friends and family who donated to make this camp possible. It was a very memorable weekend for us all and it wouldn't have been possible without you.
I will be adding all the pictures from the Camp to my Flickr this coming weekend, until then my friend and fellow blogger, Kirk, kept a "live blog" of the action as it occurred. Check out his blog for many entries of succinct explanations (something I'm not good at) and great visuals.
http://60x27.com/
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