February 13th 2015:
February has been a complete blur, with unsubstantial CAS sessions that have limited how far we can get with our projects. There are multiple things that have occurred since the last reflection and I will attempt to re-collect the events and epiphanies a fair amount of time after they have happened.
Our initial focus with sexual harassment and potential plans of working with a local school, as well as the side-project with the MS kids, have been abandoned for now because of the lack of response from the chosen target audiences. Firstly, the local school runs on a different system, in which a year runs from Jan-Dec rather than our Aug-June year. The mismatch of the school schedules meant that the local school was holiday (summer vacation) when we wanted to initiate the project, and are currently settling into the year. Furthermore, communication with the school has been very minimal and fragmented, because the principal is pregnant and is unable to communicate with us, therefore leaving us with no point of contact (as there doesn't seem to be a new principal they has taken over). The sexual harassment and self-defense project, were great projects because they were both culture specific and did more than simply raise-awareness about the issue, but actually equipped the girls with skills to defend themselves helping them in their life. The sexual harassment project, would also enable T-GO to work with a different group of people, and acquire new knowledge and skills while sharing our skills. However, there have been multiple limiting factors that have put this project on hold and have forced us to change our focus to keep the group engaged and functional.Personally, I have experienced problems when working with local schools before, specifically with the organisation and starting up a partnership. I think this is due to the cultural differences in a code of conduct, as generally in Tanzania, there is a very calm demeanour when it comes to interacting with others. On the other hand, our CAS is quite straight-forward and forthright about the interactions so that we have more time to actually conduct the lessons. The cultural clash proves to be an issue a lot of times, as a mid-ground needs to be established so that both parties are happy with the progress that is being made.
The MS forum was also unsuccessful, as no one showed up despite the bulletin announcements. Our plan of having a MS focused session either bi-weekly or monthly has been deserted due to the lack of response from the target audience. The lack of appropriate advertising could have resulted in the lack of response, because the event was shared in the bulletin and it wasn't entirely clear what it was for. Furthermore, thinking back to middle school, I think it would be quite intimidating to share my problems with a bunch of HS girls that I barely know. It would have been better it we would have used Ms.Parks girl club as a point of reaching out to the MS students and starting of a relation with them, to ensure that this project has a higher chance of being successful.
We have changed to focus for the term towards the sex-ed syllabus in our school, because we have identified a need of more sex-ed as well a more teaching methods and an increased variety of knowledge (including homosexuality and gender identity). The leaders had a brainstorm session in which we came up with several issue we could focus on, however, the ones that attracted the most attention were FGM and the sex-ed syllabus. We ended up choosing the sex-ed syllabus because it would be a more efficient project and wouldn't require any collaboration (we haven't been too successful at this before).
February has been a complete blur, with unsubstantial CAS sessions that have limited how far we can get with our projects. There are multiple things that have occurred since the last reflection and I will attempt to re-collect the events and epiphanies a fair amount of time after they have happened.
Our initial focus with sexual harassment and potential plans of working with a local school, as well as the side-project with the MS kids, have been abandoned for now because of the lack of response from the chosen target audiences. Firstly, the local school runs on a different system, in which a year runs from Jan-Dec rather than our Aug-June year. The mismatch of the school schedules meant that the local school was holiday (summer vacation) when we wanted to initiate the project, and are currently settling into the year. Furthermore, communication with the school has been very minimal and fragmented, because the principal is pregnant and is unable to communicate with us, therefore leaving us with no point of contact (as there doesn't seem to be a new principal they has taken over). The sexual harassment and self-defense project, were great projects because they were both culture specific and did more than simply raise-awareness about the issue, but actually equipped the girls with skills to defend themselves helping them in their life. The sexual harassment project, would also enable T-GO to work with a different group of people, and acquire new knowledge and skills while sharing our skills. However, there have been multiple limiting factors that have put this project on hold and have forced us to change our focus to keep the group engaged and functional.Personally, I have experienced problems when working with local schools before, specifically with the organisation and starting up a partnership. I think this is due to the cultural differences in a code of conduct, as generally in Tanzania, there is a very calm demeanour when it comes to interacting with others. On the other hand, our CAS is quite straight-forward and forthright about the interactions so that we have more time to actually conduct the lessons. The cultural clash proves to be an issue a lot of times, as a mid-ground needs to be established so that both parties are happy with the progress that is being made.
The MS forum was also unsuccessful, as no one showed up despite the bulletin announcements. Our plan of having a MS focused session either bi-weekly or monthly has been deserted due to the lack of response from the target audience. The lack of appropriate advertising could have resulted in the lack of response, because the event was shared in the bulletin and it wasn't entirely clear what it was for. Furthermore, thinking back to middle school, I think it would be quite intimidating to share my problems with a bunch of HS girls that I barely know. It would have been better it we would have used Ms.Parks girl club as a point of reaching out to the MS students and starting of a relation with them, to ensure that this project has a higher chance of being successful.
We have changed to focus for the term towards the sex-ed syllabus in our school, because we have identified a need of more sex-ed as well a more teaching methods and an increased variety of knowledge (including homosexuality and gender identity). The leaders had a brainstorm session in which we came up with several issue we could focus on, however, the ones that attracted the most attention were FGM and the sex-ed syllabus. We ended up choosing the sex-ed syllabus because it would be a more efficient project and wouldn't require any collaboration (we haven't been too successful at this before).