Day one! Healthy Play/ Jogo Saudável Training Workshop
Again, as mentioned before, we first did two sensitization meetings with the government and members of the communities to introduce the program back in June. The government partners selected "trainers". Then with the help of these trainers we conducted numerous interviews and selected community "leaders". Tuesday started a three day workshop to train the trainers on the methodology, how to support the leaders, adult education and the program in general. It also prepared them to take an active role in the training of leaders.
Playing a game.
After the three days, we continued directly into a 6 day workshop with the leaders. The trainers facilitated many of the sessions and took on many different roles in the facilitation of the workshop.
Kakra. The always happy, energetic, amazing and knowledgeable facilitator from Ghana.
The workshop has educational sessions on communication, physical and emotional safety, gender equality, social inclusion, dealing with behaviours and sessions on planning, leading and implementing the Jogo Saudável (JS) activities.
And obviously, we play lots of games. We play energizer games as well as many of the games from the Games Manual.
Playing Water Wheel. Promoting team work and inclusion.
Our Games Manual has 6 themes related to health, hygiene and sanitation that the games relate to in each section.
1. Personal Health and Hygiene
2. Waterborne Illnesses and Diseases
3. Water Protection and Handling
4. Food Preparation and Handling
5. Waste Disposal and Sanitation
6. Social Inclusion and Gender Equality (this is a cross-cutting theme that is to be used when implementing any game)
We use a specific Activity Format, methodology, when implementing the games to help the children and youth learn the messages of the different games.
Logistically the first day was a bit of a gong show but otherwise went really well. Because Kakra doesn't speak Portuguese, translating was always a bit of an issue but we worked around it. Kakra says this was one of the best trainings he's done because of how challenging the language barrier was. It was nice to see the participants implementing the program. There was a great community sense and unity when we finished. I am optimistic that this will be a big success in the communities.
On the last day, we assigned the leaders pairs with one game each and then took all the leaders to a local school to play with the kids! Big learning opportunity! There were a lot of points to work on but there were equally a lot of awesome things we saw right off the bat! It was so great to see the kids playing the games and then answering questions about hygiene. At the end a few kids came up and told us what they'd learned.
Needless to say it was a lot of hard work and long hours but the success I saw when we brought them to play with the kids made every last ounce of sweat worth it (literally as it has been so hot lately!!) The training was a big hurdle to get over before we could really start the program. We still have to do a baseline survey and Play Days in each community to launch the program but hopefully that will happen soon! Then it will be in the hands of the leaders to implement the JS Activities and the hands of the trainers to support and encourage them. It was a great learning experience working under stress and coordinating an event like this in such a different settling. Where food for 45 people still has to been cooked over a fire and people are still picky and all those other challenges. I've learned lots and hopefully am growing into a better balanced person.
Kakra!
Trying to maintain the giant circle!
Bringing all the groups together for a big final sing and dance
Kakra singing his songs
Our 26 JS Leaders
