End of a Great Week

So, I am back in Antigua again after a long week of traveling and learning. We really learned a lot this past week. Visiting lots of schools, seeing other volunteers and getting a glimpse of what our life is going to be in the next two years. I think it is finally time for me to explain as much as I can at this point about my program. In Guatemala there are 6 different volunteer programs and mine is called Healthy Schools. It is a program that partners with the Guatemalan Ministry of Education to go into rural schools in Guatemala to create healthier health practices. It can be anything from infrastructure projects to help schools get water, to teaching basic hygiene lessons such as when to wash your hands or how important it is to brush your teeth. It started in 1996, so it has been around a while. It also is going to start partnering with a healthy homes program, meaning a volunteer goes into a rural community to help back up the practices children are learning in schools to be re-enforced in the home. What is super super cool about these programs is that the money Obama has given to expand the peace corps will be applied to three programs worldwide, in order to make a larger difference. One of the money programs is "Health" in Guatemala. So this year there were 27 people in Healthy Schools, next year there will be 40 and when I close my service, there will be 60! In health Schools and Healthy Homes, so there will be 120 Health volunteers in Guatemala in 2012! How exciting and crazy!
So now I can explain more about how Healthy Schools works. For the first 13 years, volunteers would be assigned alone to work with 2-4 schools and after 4 years they would hopefully become certified as healthy. There is a pretty detailed profile about everything that a school needs to become healthy, involving adequate water for drinking, clean school, clean bathrooms, clean looking students who wash their hands, etc. The idea is that when students are healthy they learn better and are overall better people. So anyway, with that said, they feel that working with 2-4 schools, they were averaging at certifying 10 schools per year and there are 18,000 schools in Guatemala and with an end goal of certifying all schools, that would take a while. So they have created 2 new phases that my group will be beginning to pilot and hopefully direct the future of the Healthy Schools program. So phase 2 has had a few volunteers before (like 6); however the majority of my group will be doing this program. What this means is that with a partner you work to certify all of the schools in a county. So that could be anywhere from 20-40 schools. I will most likely be doing this phase and what is nice about it is that you get to have a partner to work with as well as see your work on a larger scale. Then there is Phase 3, which is working with all of the schools in a department (or state). There are 2 volunteers doing this phase right now and there will be 4 from my group. It is really an exciting time to be learning about these new projects and be starting something new. Everything we have learned this far tells us that we will be making our job and get to learn as we go! So that is very exciting.
Now that I have addressed at least the tip of what Healthy Schools is you guys can have an idea of what my life will be like. The past week was spent seeing what life is like for the few volunteers that are working in Phase 2 and Phase 3 right now are doing and how we can take their experiences and apply it to our own. Also, we spent time really getting to know each other. It was nice to spend some time away from home, even though I missed my host family and was definitely ready to come home yesterday. We really got to bonding as a group and I've really met some great people here. We also had a general info about where we would like to live here in Guate... like we have any idea! We also get some input on who are partner is for the next two years?!? Talk about pressure. Two years is a long time, but I've got some good prospects and I'm just really excited to get started. As far as I know I will be receiving all of this info on March 11 so that's d-day for now. As for this week, just more work in the schools, my 23rd birthday and my madre's birthday as well. Just adjusting back to the life of a PC trainee. Anyway, love and miss you all lots and love hearing from you. As for now, life is great and I'm enjoying the hot weather here! love love love