Vamos Jogar!

Me and my friend Elisabetta are working on a new project that we hope will become a new Peace Corps secondary project.  Currently the PC secondary projects are REDES, a project that teaches young girls about health, income generation projects and woman empowerment.   There is JUNTOS which includes boys and girls and teaches about HIV and health through the arts: photography, drawing, painting, dance, drama and music.   There is English Theatre where Mozambicans can practice their English by writing a play and presenting it in a competition against other PC English Theatre groups.   There is also Science Fair where students can compete in a science competition.   We are starting a competitive sports project that will include boys and girls, soccer and hopefully basketball and volleyball in the future.   We will be teaching about health, values and entrepreneurship in efforts to fight against HIV, corruption and aid dependency.  

We are including ages 11-18 that will make up soccer teams with a maximum of 20 people.  The coaches of each team will participate in a training in the beginning of the season to learn how to teach about the various health and values lessons.   Each coach will receive a manual that describes the each lesson accompanied by a related activity.  The coach will present the lessons at each game and so not only can the players can learn but the audience will have the opportunity to participate.  

The PCV and coaches will lead a life skills workshop two times per month.   The topics of the workshops will range from cooking demonstrations to practice good nutrition, guest speakers sharing information on their profession and the steps it took to reach their position, or how to make toys out of wire that the youth can sell.    The workshops are meant to put the health lessons into practice, learn how to make crafts that youth can sell, and get them excited about the future possibilities of education and careers.   At the end of the year we will have another training and follow up for the coaches.   The PCV will be responsible for checking in with the coaches throughout the year to ensure that they are giving the health lessons and participating in the preparation and presentation of the workshops. 

We have had one meeting with PC staff to explain the project and see what the steps are to get PC to fund it and put their name on it so other PCVs can participate in the future.  They liked the idea and told us to apply for a grant to fund the first year and if it goes well they will recommend the project to the public affairs office, which funds all other PC projects.  We are still working out all the logistics and trying to put together a manual which has been a long process. 

We are trying to include the community as much as possible.   We are currently working with the directors of youth sports and activities of Chokwe and Guija to get their opinions and cooperation for the project.   It is going to be huge if they can actually organize things through their side in the government and community because at the end of the day we want this to be a project run solely by Mozambicans.  

In efforts to involve the community we are also holding a competition for the high school students the design the name and logo.  We are handing out a flyer to the art and PE teachers that explains the competition and what we are looking for in the name.   We also handed out documents with the projects description, mission, vision, goals, objectives and a list of the lessons to various community members to get their opinions and to help with correcting spelling and grammar of Portuguese.   

We are getting down to the final steps of writing our grant proposal to PC and editing all of our documents.  We have had 2 games between our two towns, Chokwe and Guija.  Guija won the first game and the second game was a tie… Chokwe is going to win the next one!    After the grant is approved we will start implementing the project throughout Mozambique and start writing the very detailed manual in English and Portuguese.   The project is a lot of work but we are really excited and motivated to be completely finished by the end of our service!