Hosting Practicum Week

Arts and Crafts, making paper bead bracelets.

In February I was asked to host practicum week for the new group of Health Trainees. I was honored and immediately accepted, knowing it would be challenge. Practicum week is an opportunity for trainees to visit a current volunteer, give charlas, put on events, and get a better feel for what we do as health volunteers. In order to prepare for practicum week I had events to plan, charla audiences to invite, meals to order, and a hospedaje to polish up. I was busy for all of February and March preparing to host 20 people in my small, rural site. 

Elements of Practicum Week:

Morning Sessions: Each day we, the PCVs demonstrated how we teach various topics. The topics included HIV/AIDS, maternal and infant health, breast feeding, nutrition, danger signs during pregnancy, family planning and prevention of pregnancy in adolescence. After seeing the topics the trainees planned their own versions and gave their charlas in the afternoons.

Afternoon Charlas: During the 3 days of practice the trainees gave charlas to brigadistas (local community health volunteers), men, and my youth group on HIV/AIDS; put on an open house in the casa materna; gave charlas on family planning in the health center; and supported me in putting a billiards tournament surrounding HIV/AIDS.

In the microbus on the way out to a rural community health post.

Feria de la Casa Materna: The open house in the casa materna was a lot of fun. I invited pregnant women from around the municipality and 21 showed up to partake in the event, along with a handful of midwives and nurses that helped us facilitate the various activities. The trainees gave charlas on nutrition, breast feeding, and warning signs during pregnancy. We had yoga and meditation sessions, arts and crafts, and cooking with soy. At the end of the afternoon many of the women left with beautiful bracelets (made from beads of magazine paper), new friends, and tummies full of banana soy fritters, soy chorizo, soy milk and jocote (a local fruit).

Trainees giving a charla to pregnant women on waring signs and symptoms during pregnancy.

Cooking with soy meat and soy milk

Billiards tornament: One of the nights we hosted a billiards tornament in the local pool hall with an HIV/AIDS focus. Pool halls are one of the places in Nicaraguan communities that are a men’s hang out. It is where boys and adolescents are educated about women, alcohol, smoking, and trash talking. Pool halls are therefore an excellent place to reach out to men and talk about HIV/AIDS because it is a relaxed environment for them, and the charlas are given with a good sense of humor. The tornament is 4 rounds long and in between each round we give a short charla on a sub-topic of HIV/AIDS. The final game is where the charlas come into place. After every ball they pocket, they have to answer a question about HIV/AIDS that was covered in one of the previous charlas. If they answer incorrectly, the ball gets put back on the table. We also had a good turnout for this event and it was a lot of fun. We had 80’s music for the games and a microphone for the charlas. The pool hall owner was in charge of the brackets and prize money. We also had support from a local NGO, PrevenSIDA, which donated raffle prizes, condoms, lube, and helped us facilitate the charlas. Overall this event was a great success and a lot of fun for everyone.

Charlita on HIV Prevention.

Charlita on HIV Transmission.

 

Playing Pool. We attracted a big crowd.

Somoto Canyon: On the last day we went to visit the Somoto Canyon. It was a special tour because this time our tour guide explained a lot of the history of the canyon, as well as plant and animal life in the canyon. As you can imagine, as an ecology/biology major I was geeking out. But overall it was a fun and we all enjoyed ourselves after packed week of events and charlas.

Heading into the Canyon.

Hanging out in the Somoto Canyon.

I am happy with all of the successes of week and I think we all learned a lot from the experience. I learned about how to organize different types of audiences for charlas and how to better delegate tasks. I also got several points on how to improve my Spanish and realized that I need to brush up on a few sexual health topics that I teach. I really enjoyed meeting the new group of health volunteers; they are all very qualified and motivated people. I am excited to get to know them better throughout this next year and hopefully collaborate with some of them at some point.