What we do besides cook and invent things.....

I thought I would write a little bit about what we do and what projects we are working on just in case you have all been thinking that all we do is cook and invent things and be scared of bugs. Kory and I are in the process of dividing all of our projects. We both have so many ideas and we end up working a lot together which makes autonomy difficult. This is a picture if the division, but it will serve as a way to talk shortly about the projects. I will not specify who will be or is working on each one, only describe it because there are so many. The beauty of this job is that we are left to our own devices. Some suffer in this type of work environment. We love it because we can do things our own way and those of you who know us, know we like our way.

Adolescent Clinic

We are trying to get a space and funding for an adolescent clinic in our health center. This would be a place with a special staff specially trained to deal with youth on issues of sexual and reproductive health. The concern is that sooooooo many kids are sexually active and are getting pregnant because no one has the guts to talk to them about sex. THis would be a safe place they could come to get non judgemental help.

Posters for the Casa Materna

We are working on a national project here, being tired of making charlas with papelografo, only to have them destroyed. We will be developing 10 charlas pertinent to pregnant women and designing them into a vinyl poster that is waterproof, fadeproof and can be roled up and taken to fairs and the country to promote the topics. Each of the 68 casas maternas in the country will have one of each of the 10 topics to hang in thier building and do charlas from. THis will cost upwards of $20,000 so we will be looking to NGO´s for funding.We have already got the support of the casa materna at a national level.

HIV Training at the Army Base

There is an army base near our town with almost 500 men. We are trying to arrange a mass HIV training for them. (Our cuota for training men about HIV is 50 each.... so this would be pretty cool.)

Voz de Salud (Voice of Health)

This is our radio group that we have started. We will be having a bi-weekly radio group with a bunch of kids that we have trained or will train. The kids will be performing the radio show on topics related to health, sexuality and the environment.

Youth Survey

There are about 6 NGO´s working in our town with youth and youth promotores. Not one of them has done a needs assessment or survey of the issues youth face in our municipality. We will be doing a survey of all 3000 youth in the highschools if we can find a computer program capable of analyzing the data better than excell. (Hint if you know any or could send us a copy,... we would reaaaaallly appreciate it). We will also need funding for the copies of the survey.

There are a ton of other ones, that maybe I can elaborate on later, like our youth artist group that is doing murals all over and we are starting another one, the mural kory and I will be doing in the casa materna when the rains stop, the trainings at the health center on HIV counselling, building latrines and doing higene trainings for staff and patients at th health center where currently the patients squat behind the buildings or hold it. .. and no one washes thier hands. Sooooo many... But i know its boring with so little pictures. More pics next time. Enjoy, and dont miss the last entry I did today either. Love heather and kory