After “In Service Training” one of the programs I chose to implement is Brothers for Life. Brothers for Life and its sister
program, ZAZI, were developed by Johns Hopkins Health and Education South Africa
(JHHESA) and are specifically designed for young men and women (15-25 years
old) in South Africa. JHHESA has a very good relationship with Peace Corps
South Africa and encourages volunteers to implement these programs in their
villages.
 |
| My counterpart Tebatso and participants drawing out the male anatomy |
Since
leaving IST, my head has been swimming in project ideas and things to do! One
thing I knew I wanted to start right away was a pilot group for Brothers For
Life (BFL). I say pilot because I wanted to get my two community counterparts
more familiar with facilitating these types of discussions and also so that I
could run through the curriculum with a small group. The curriculum consists of
9 sessions with titles like “Brothers as Lovers,” “Brothers are beating
HIV,” and “Brothers are Good at Life.” Each session has a few planned
activities and background information but it is really up to us to tailor the
program as we see fit. One important aspect is the Pre and Post tests required by JHHESA. They consist of 10 straightforward questions intended to gauge how much
participants know before starting BFL and how much knowledge they have gained
once we complete the 9 sessions.
 |
| Checking out their work! |
Going forward, I've decided to
adopt a lot of activities from the ZAZI curriculum because I think they work
really well for young men too. For example, last week I asked the group to
split into two and assigned one group as men and one group as women. Then my counterpart
asked each group to draw the naked body. Afterwards, we laid out actual
illustrations of male and female reproductive organs and we discussed how their
ideas of men and women differed from reality. We then talked about myths
regarding sex, and about how to maintain our sexual health.
 |
| Some positive and negative aspects of relationships. |
In the
beginning, I was very nervous that I would hear crickets whenever my
counterpart or myself asked a question. To my surprise, everyone is very
talkative and ask very pointed questions (some of which I had to hold onto and
look up at answers to at home!) This definitely makes the conversations easier
and looking back I realize that many of these young men just don’t have an
environment in the village where they can ask these types of questions. Walking home with one
participant last week, he mentioned how much he learned about female
reproductive organs and that in 7
th grade his teacher just gave them
an illustration and said, “here, this is the female” and that was it.
 |
| Tebatso adding some ideas on how to improve our romantic relationships |
I am realizing now that BFL can
provide a space for young men to ask the questions they can't ask anywhere else. It can also
be a space where they can discuss problems they don’t feel comfortable
discussing anywhere else. These two reasons alone make all the planning and implementation worth it. After we finish this “pilot” program, I want to expand and run BFL programs in
surrounding villages. The goal would be for me to host a workshop for
prospective facilitators (counterparts) and then check-in on those facilitators over the 9
sessions they run. Just like with any Peace Corps programs, I want BFL to be
sustainable without me, so my
real
goal is to get both participants and facilitators to understand how valuable a
simple 9-hour program can be in helping young men to address problems in today's South Africa.
