Patricia finishes one of her major projects!!!

(aux lecteurs francophones:  mes excuses de ne pas avoir ni le temps ni la patience de traduire le texte anglais.  Il est 7:00 le matin et on est sur l’ile de Bonaire.  Jean-Claude est encore au lit… J’ai trop hate d’aller faire de l’apnee.  On vous decrira notre aventure ici plus tard)

            One major project done!  Since our arrival in July I have spent a good deal of my time project managing the delivery of a 3-day Train-the-Trainer workshop and the 11-day Volunteer Program Development & Management Course Guyana 2012.  The Cuso – Guyana office was offering this course to its partner volunteer-involving organizations in order to build their capacity and to heighten their awareness of national volunteering as a development strategy.  The course materials were with the lead facilitator, Carol Kiangura who came from Kenya VSO office to deliver the course.

            My role was to send out the call for nominations, select the participants, prepare all the pre-course materials, etc. etc.  Christina Edwards, a wonderful Amerindian Guyanese who spent 5 years in Toronto, ably assisted me.   Together we ensured everything was in place for Carol when she arrived.  Luckily Hurricane Sandy hit the week before, as her flights were all cancelled!  But we only had to delay the Train-the-Trainer workshop by one day.  

A unique feature of this course is its adaptability to local culture and contexts by selecting and training local volunteer managers to deliver the 11-day course.  I co-facilitated this workshop with Carol and then I lead Module 1 on International Development perspectives, delivering 2 full sessions of the actual course to the 18 participants.  The participants ranged in age from 19 to 60 with the average being late 20’s, early 30’s.  They were all involved in some way with a volunteer organization, either as the manager, coordinator or member.  From the evaluations, it is obvious the course was a great success.

            I had a wonderful experience.  For the 11 days we were at an isolated resort, Lake Mainstay (see the posting of our visit dated September 5, 2012).  We stayed in 2-bedroom cabins, mine overlooked the lake, and with a lovely little balcony it was pure pleasure to get up in the morning and relax with a view.  We were 3 non-whites:  myself, Raquel from Peru, and Hanna, a Finnish Bolivian.  There were 2 lovely ladies from Jamaica, and then Carol from Kenya.  The rest were Guyanese.  There was a lot of learning and also a lot of laughter and sharing.  I felt totally integrated into the group who appreciated my sense of humour!  I had great conversations about Guyanese history and culture. I tasted all the local Guyanese foods and snacks as the Resort served only that. It was a wonderful opportunity to interact with Guyanese on a totally different level than in Georgetown.

Check out these photos.  Sorry they didn't upload in sequence.  Enjoy!

The Lead Facilitator Carol Kiangura from Kenya with her white counterpart

Christina Edwards was the third member of the project team

I loved being back facilitating: Vanessa, Anntonette, Dwayne

but everyone spoke so softly!!

Jennel had them do serious work

And we had a lot of good laughs

Especially with the energizers:  in this one you had to keep one foot on a small piece of paper

This energizer is meant to show that everyone needs to work together if we are to move forward!

We went on 2 site visits, travelling in a mini-bus

We visited a Community Rehabilitation Centre:  the members are in the first two rows

For the next visit, we took a boat across a very large lake

To visit a primary school in an Amerindian village, Mashabo, that has volunteer teachers recruited by Youth Challenge Guyana

Small classes as the community is only 500 people.  That's Carol taking a photo of the kindergarten class.

The young Headmaster of the school wanted to show us "white water"

Clear, clear, clear water like this is very unusual in Guyana

All the rivers and lakes have "black" water because of the tannins.  This is the lake water at Lake Mainstay.

We spent 11 days in this beautiful lakeside resort.  Those huts are called "benabs" and they provide the shade.

As Dwayne shows us, we ate well: rice, rice, and more rice, chicken & fish

Everyone enjoyed the warm lake water even if it is "black"

"Sunning" on the beach at the end of the day:  Jennel & Germaine

Everyone graduated - the classic group photo (sorry it is out of order!)

We had a karaokee night:  Jennel, Mickel, Carol and Patricia singing 

Dionne, Mickel, Marisa in front of one of the cabins.

new houses in Mashabo village where we visited the school