World Map Project | Proiectul Harta Lumii

When a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer had to urgently leave the country, she wasn't able to finish the World Map Project she initiated in her community. The World Map Project is a worldwide Peace Corps initiative that began in 1988. A Volunteer in the Dominican Republic was struggling to teach her geography lessons without materials, and thus resorted to painting the map directly on the wall of her classroom.

I traveled to my friend's former village this week to help her community implement the project. Through a penny war, the students raised close to 300 USD, enough to re-finish a wall and buy all the necessary supplies to paint a map in their main corridor. Though I was rather intimidated by this project, my friend's former partner (Liliana) and I found the Peace Corps' World Map Handbook extremely easy to follow. We even finished the project hours ahead of schedule.

We spent the first day reading the manual and organizing our plan. Day two we made a grid on our map to make the sketching of the countries practically fool-proof and started painting. According to the manual's color-coding, Russia was painted yellow, Ukraine red, and China pink. If you are eager to make a political joke about the color coding, too late. I've heard them all this week!

By the end of the third day, we had every country painted and came back the next morning to make last minute touches and let two girls from the eighth grade scribe the names of each country.

I could not be happier with the results of this project. I was a skeptic at first. Had no idea what I was doing. How could I help with a project I knew nothing about? But now I am seriously considering doing a World Map Project in my own community. I owe a big THANK YOU to the other volunteers who gave me advice along the way. You know who you are!

WORLD AIDS DAY

Somewhere around December 1, 2009, a member of the youth council read about World AIDS Day events on the internet and wanted to see something done here, in our town. Not that an informational campaign isn't useful at anytime, but due to the lateness of the request, the idea never caught on at the council...the moment passed. Moreover, the youth council members would have struggled to put together a campaign on an issue they themselves knew very little about. 

Thus, I am happy to report the success of World AIDS Day 2010, a three-part story.

Part One: Getting Informed

Peace Corps applicants are told that they will probably work in HIV/AIDS prevention at some point during their service, no matter the field of work. It's a worldwide Peace Corps initiative. But in Moldova, due to strict regulations regarding what can be taught in the classroom on the subject, it isn't exactly an area where we are encouraged to seek work. 

Thus, my politically correct strategy for getting the youth informed on the issue was to call in a third-party expert. Tinerii pentru Dreptul la Viață (Youth for the Right to Life), an organization from a neighboring city, is an organization with which we were already acquainted from our mutual participation in a human trafficking prevention event. 

Why it took a political loop hole for me to consider calling in a Moldovan expert to speak to Moldovan youth on this issue, I have no idea. Corina presented the information better, more fluently, and more creatively than I ever could. She's done this seminar hundreds of times, and it shows in all the best ways.  I particularly appreciated how she took the time to describe every word and definition in the acronyms HIV/SIDA. As we discussed immunity with the group, she clarified her point using an umbrella. A normal functioning umbrella protects us from the rain. A damaged umbrella, like a deficient immune system, fails to protect us.

By the end of the seminar the group felt comfortable with Corina and the information she was sharing. We sat around the table and I watched a quizzical look come across an eighth grade girl's face...

"Miss Corina, I have a question...where did the HIV come from?" She managed.
"Well, there are some theories," Corina started, before a tenth grader interjected.
"From the homosexuals of course!" The tenth grader stated.
"But, where...I mean from whom did the homosexuals get it in the beginning?" The eight grader fired back.

Watching Moldovans react to subjects like these is fascinating. In America, we have (mostly) sensitized ourselves to these issues. The generation of Moldovan youth I work with is just starting to question if sensitization is something they want for their country, for their culture. Guess what? They don't all agree.

Part Two: Preparing the Information

The day before World AIDS day, volunteers prepared materials for the street campaign. While some painted signs, others worked on finding a maxim to post around town, I translated a fact sheet to be printed, and everyone got quizzed by yours truly on the facts.

Not only did I ask the youth who attended the previous week's seminar to repeat pertinent facts, but we also worked through a basic HIV/AIDS Quiz I found online. Between the quiz and the expert opinion, there was still at least one volunteer believing that HIV is contractible from mosquitoes. But to be honest, as long as she understood all the other ways you can definitely contract the disease, I'm happy to hear the group argue and repeat the facts.

Part Three: Disseminating the Information

   

Finally, on World AIDS Day 2010, we took to the snowy streets with our signs, brochures, fact sheets, ribbons, and positive energy. Since the snow seemed to fall heavier by the minute, I can't say this is our most successful campaign (in terms of numbers of people we actually spoke with), but we stayed out there until all our materials had been distributed. When I got home, my host mom said that thing again...

"Melissa, your eyes are smiling! Where have you been?!"

Successful Snippets

Wooohooo! What a fantastic week, and it's only Tuesday! Okay, so remember the post about my first REAL Peace Corps Project? Or maybe the one about finding a good rhythm despite winter challenges? Or when I gushed about how much I LOVE EASTER in Moldova? Well...I lied, or I exaggerated, because what I meant to say is that this is the part of my service really love. Like really.

Yesterday, amongst the girl talk, vain attempts to extend summer vacation just a little longer, and catch up with work, my partner (right) surprised me--big time. She said to me, "Melissa, I want to have a discussion with the youth council about roles and responsibilities of the president and vice-president before we hold the next council election." Woohooo, again! Granted, it may not seem like much to the average reader, but it took unseen amounts of self-restraint not to bust out a touchdown dance (or did I?). It's small changes like this that I have been encouraging for a year, and now they are being recognized. We are hoping that by defining the roles and responsibilities before people are elected into them, we can have more teeth with which to hold people accountable. After all, you wouldn't apply for a job without knowing what the job was would you?

Yesterday evening was equally enjoyable. As it was my neighbor's birthday we headed over with the rest of the gang to celebrate. "Love thy neighbor" is not something I have to work at here in Moldova, it just comes naturally with this bunch. Since it was also my Granny's birthday back home, several toasts were said for her too. Granny, they wished you good health, many years, many grandchildren, and thanked you for sending me along to Moldova (haha...yea...I know).

Following that fantastic 24 hours was today, and the official closing of our summer leadership course. Here is a photo of the whole group in front of the district council.

Again, this is the incredible program that used the graduates of last year's course as this year's trainers. Very sustainable. Always memorable. This is the first year that the founders of the program were not involved in the planning and facilitation of the events, and as I spoke to the youth today they radiated a certain amount of pride for carrying on the proverbial torch successfully. Irena, a good friend, even commented that this year's group of participants and trainers were much more united as a group than before, being that everyone was learning together. That could be why at about 11:00 a.m. people on the street below probably heard this chant billowing out the third story windows of the district council:

A: "What are we?!"

B: "FRIENDS!"

A: "And what does that mean we are?!"

B "A TEAM!"

Fresh Volunteers

Our trainings for the "Be the Volunteer, Be the Change" campaign came to a turning point on Saturday. Officially, it was the projects closing date, though I won't say the work is done. We picked a hand-full from among the over two-hundred youth we first spoke to about volunteerism to attend the training, during the course of the training, not all the youth continued to show interest. I cannot consider this a tragedy, for I would rather spend my time with a dozen dedicated individuals than a hundred disengaged teenagers. Here we are posing in our new t-shirts at the end of the day. I wanted to do tie-dye, but it probably wouldn't have been "frumos" (pretty) enough.

To recap, this project took us out into seven villages where we spoke to youth about volunteerism and the concept of a local youth council (where I work!). We then selected youth from each village to come to our center and learn more. For four weeks, we taught courses on leadership, public speaking, garnering support from local partners, and how the youth groups cam officially register as a non-governmental organization with the district's department of youth and sports.

I am thrilled to report a glimpse at our results:

[+] Two groups of youth already visited their mayor and struck ground and agreements of partnership. One mayor even gave the youth a room inside city hall (primaria) to house their council.

[+] Each group of youth had homework throughout the training. One assignment was to conduct a volunteer activity in their community. This resulted in organized clean-up days in two of our villages. One group cleaned a stream area, another their sports stadium. I asked what the average passerby had to say to the latter group. A proud young lady responded, "Everyone came to thank us for taking the initiative to clean up a mess that affected the whole community."

[+] This week I am going out to facilitate a SWOT Analysis with one of the more developed groups of youth. This way, I hope we can identify what comes next for the group.

[+] My partner gets to finish her first go at the project planning process, as this week we are tasked with writing a report to the funders that helped us pull off the project.

Volunteerism goes district wide

Having completed our tour of the district to speak about youth volunteerism, Saturday was the first day of training for our new recruits. Until this point, we had only briefly visited them in their villages to talk about all the benefits volunteerism can bring to a community, now we are actually giving them the skills they need to create and achieve their goals. Of course, no event like this gets started without a name game. This was by far the hardest one I had ever played, you have to listen to your teammates (who are yelling in a number of languages) and try to guess who is sitting behind you...and remember his/her name.

I am thrilled about these trainings because:

[+] We have incredibly active participants/volunteers

[+] Like the summer leadership course that was started by Nadya and Sharon, this is a program where youth are teaching youth...SusTAinABIlitY!

[+] The youth in town already have an arsenal of skills including leadership, teamwork, and public speaking (not that they aren't constantly evolving), but the youth from these villages have many more areas of needs than the youth in my town. Building relationships with them means that I could opening the doors to a lot more work in my district as a whole.

[+] It is my partner's first chance to stand on the instruction side of the line. She is actually so active, some of the other youth trainers asked her to not talk so much!