The last two months I have been very busy planning a maternal and child health (MCH) workshop focused on nutrition in Tenkodogo. Six PCVs participated and each brought two villagers that were interested in doing projects with them once they return to site. I ran into lots of problems planning the workshop and was very frustrated leading up to and during it with all of the behind-the-scenes stuff but I think the actual event went really well. Everyone seemed to have learned a lot and enjoyed themselves and I hope will apply what they learned back in village.
We covered a variety of topics that fit under the main theme and I tried to include lots of activities, discussions, and visuals to make it more intersting. Workshops and meetings here are usually very formal with a facilitator that lectures to participants the entire time. When it comes to questions, everyone asks them at the end and he writes them all down before answering them all in order. If there are powerpoints, they are just slides full of sentences. In other words, not at all interesting! The facilitators that I tried to work with really didn't understand what I was trying to describe when I said I wanted it to be interesting and in simple terms but I think they were impressed and learned about a more American style for conferences.
Our basic topics were malnutrition, proper nutrition and the 3 food groups (yep we use 3 in Burkina), moringa, breastfeeding, weaning, baby nutrition and making enriched porridge, hygiene, sanitation, childhood vaccinations, prenatal consultations and giving birth at the health center. We also focused on specific nutrition needs of pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children. I included a session on family planning as well since if there are less mouths to feed, everybody can have better nutrition. The last day we talked about womens group that can offer support, education, or do income generating activites such as savings & credit clubs, gardening, soapmaking, and making packaged porridge to sell. We also talked about different ways to present the info in village such as giving sensibilizations and how to make them interesting, working with a theatre group, doing porridge demonstrations, and doing large murals on walls with health topics.
The final activity was each of the village groups had to prepare a sensibilization and then give it to the full group in order to get some practice with public speaking and thinking of making a presentation interesting. None of them were wonderful but at least its a start and hopefully they can make improvements as they work with their volunteer back at site. Everyone also wrote an action plan of activities they want to do in village so I am excited to hear what they end up doing.
I brought three participants since I was the closest and there was an extra space. They included my village midwife and best friend Dabre who does all my porridge demos with me as well as prenatal consultations and deliveries at the CSPS, Lene who also works at my CSPS and does a lot of the childhood vaccinations and helps out with lots of other stuff, and Assetou who works at a new health center in the next village over and does many of the same things as Dabre but wants to do more activies with women. I am excited to continue working with them back in village now.
I've posted many pictures of the event. I am looking forward to spending some time in village after travelling to Tenkodogo 3 times during April for planning this and a trip to Ouaga for a work meeting. I have been out of village for at least a night every week for the last 6 weeks so its been hard to feel settled or have any kind of routine. Even now I will only be in village for three weeks with one short trip out before I have several more events planned that will take me through until August. I'm exhausted from all of the travels and don't want to think about everything coming up. Crazy schedule!
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