PC Training

Throughout our 11 weeks of training, the primary focus was to improve our individual levels of Spanish-speaking ability so that we would be as prepared as possible once we were dropped off at our final sites.  There were two big real-life tests that swept us out of our comfort zones and made us put into practice what we'd been studying, and both involved working with youth.  First up was the four hour charla on HIV/AIDS given to local colegio children.  A couple of volunteers prepped us the day before by going over what needed to be covered and how it ought to be delivered, in theory (good luck when actually standing in front of 25 twelve year olds...).  We were each given comprehensive manuals covering the charla, so in reality, it wasn't all that difficult from a content point of view.  After several hours of preparing our materials and divvying up the sections, my group of Samantha, Jacob, Cruz, and I were ready for the challenge.

Getting the kids involved in the awkwardness

Put yourselves in the shoes of a 7th grader from Yuscaran for a second.  A group of gringos has strolled into your room to test out their newly-formed Spanish-speaking ability by presenting a taboo subject dealing with sex, condoms, and HIV to you.  And these gringos start out by trying to break the ice by getting you to share as many street words as you can come up with for different parts of the male and female bodies...  You know you're in for a good/uncomfortable/comical day, right?

Hard to say who was more bashful, the volunteers?

Or the kids?

Using a mixture of lectures, quizzes, dinamicas (games to break up the monotony and burn some of their constantly building energy), and even a 10 step demonstration on how to put a condom on (a banana) done by your's truly and Jacob, we walked out of there with a mixture of senses of relief that it was over and satisfaction that we'd presented ideas to them that were brand new and incredibly important.  It's been my experience so far to see an alarmingly high number of girls in Honduras between the estimated ages of 12-15, toting around their own babies.  Coming from discussions with people like our Honduran trainers and members of my different host families, it is almost expected that relationships between men and women aren't mutually exclusive.  Kids generally don't learn about concepts like fidelity, abstinence, proper use of condoms, etc. in school or at home.  So, if we were able to change just one of these children's perspectives on any of these topics, I'd consider it a morning well spent for all involved.

Jacob, making things less or more awkward?

After several more weeks of Spanish class, we had finally arrived at our ultimate challenge: the five day business simulation.  We 18 volunteers were broken up into groups of 4 or 5, making sure there was as close to an average level of speaking ability spread throughout.  Each group was assigned a class of 6th graders to be our guinea pigs.  The object of the assignment was to teach basic business topics (business plans, marketing, production, organization, finance) through a series of lectures, come up with a business idea that would incorporate what was taught and hopefully learned, and compete against the other classes in an attempt to raise money for the school.

Seeing as Mother's Day was the week after the simulation, my group steered our brainstorming towards coming up with something specific for the holiday.  On their own, the kids identified that one girl in the class had a particular penchant towards arts and crafts, so, led by her designs and ability, we settled on making our own Mother's Day cards.  The other groups decided on making pens with fake flowers attached to them, decorated barrettes, and bracelets.  After a day and a half of lectures, we broke our class up into teams, to stress the efficiency that could be created by multi-tasking.  The majority of the kids chipped in on the production side.  A group of rambunctious boys was selected as the marketing/sales team.  A couple of girls slowly raised their hands to work on accounting.  So, with the L.350 loan provided by the Peace Corps in hand, we set out to buy the necessary materials so that we could start up production.

We volunteers had quietly established a goal of breaking the L.1,400 mark set by a group the year before.  With our wild card, Slater (a very successful entrepreneur before PC), we definitely had the cunning and drive (to not be defeated by any other group at least).  After some modest first day sales (we undershot the amount of time we thought it would take to make these intricate cards by hand), Slater strategically asked the kids if they wanted to put in work on creating and selling the cards over the weekend.  As the money had started to trickle in on Friday, we think that the kids were bit by the profit bug and they overwhelmingly agreed that that would be a good idea (they actually wanted to do what amounted to schoolwork over the entire weekend!).  So what do I see but a group of 12 kids at my house at 8am on Saturday morning, chomping at the bit to continue.  After two and a half more days of production and sales, our group ended up victorious with L.1,155 in profits!  We didn't hit our goal of L.1,400 but we were quite amazed at the number of cards they had been able to produce and sell in such a short period of time...  The next closest group brought in L.715 off the sales of the floral pens.  As a whole, the simulation brought in over L.2,000 for the school, with each group being profitable. 

In my dining room at 8am Saturday morning

The kids, hard at work on the cards

Slater and Roman, hard at work chasing chickens around my back patio

The more expensive of the two designs,
commanding L.30 each

We were all really impressed by the majority of the students in our class, with a handful of them really standing out.  They had dived into the project from the get go and were the driving forces behind keeping the other kids interested and participating.  Once sales started coming in, there was no stopping them.  Some of the boys were keen salesmen, developing their own carefully worded pitch, tugging on heart strings if needed.  The majority of the kids showed dedication to the cause by spending hours designing and creating the cards.  And one girl in particular shone above all the rest.  Belinda singlehandedly took control of the accounting, sending kids back to the store if they forgot to ask for a receipt, collecting all of the money from sales, and keeping an accurate record of costs and profits.  It really is fun to look back and think that we may have played a small part in inspiring her (or any of the others) to start her own business some day; she clearly has the organization and drive to be successful. 

Ninos Emprendedores with their final wad of cash

Hard to say who was more proud, the kids?

Or the volunteers?