projects

ok, i'm ready to talk about it... what you've all been waiting for... info about my projects, (pauses while croud cheers). p.s. in case you care, there is a differentition in arabic and tashelheit with the word "project" (which implies that it costs money) and "activity" (which doesn't)... so i will split my project/activity ideas up the same way in this post

ACTIVITIES

teaching:
last week, i got together with a few other volunteers, and we did a health education lesson in the local middle school about nutrition, hand washing, and teeth brushing. since i haven't gotten my ministry approval to teach in schools yet, this was a nice first step. doing the lesson with other volunteers also gave me a lot more confidence to start doing them on my own. i have written up lessons for basic hand washing and teeth brushing in my local language, and i'm just waiting for approval to start teaching in my own schools. because there are only primary schools in my site, i have written very basic lesson plans that would suit 5-10 year olds. i explain microbes as tiny bugs that you can't see, but they make you sick, and have various volunteer driven demonstrations. i'd like to also write a very basic nutrition lesson about food groups and the healthy foods to eat.

murals:
something that's also very popular in this country are murals on the school walls. i'd like to do a handwashing mural and a teethbrushing mural. also waiting for approval from the ministry for this too.

school library:

i have requested from the peace corps librarian any donated arabic and/or french books in order to start a school library. i am going to try to stick primarily to french and arabic books, as most students have little to no exposure to english. so, if anyone knows of any organizations that have french/arabic books to donate, or you have them (for some odd reason) lying around you house, let me know.

site map:
this is one that i've been meaning to do, and really should have done it by now... (shame). but i want to make a colourful acurate site map of all the villages that are under my health clinic's authority (that's so the wrong word, but i'm at a lost...). i have a topographic map of my area which shows where all the villages are... it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it. next week, i swear.

water resource guide:
another project that ideally would have been done now, but i'm waiting for my bike to get delivered so i can reach the futher out villages. this, when it's completed will be a resource guide that i will hopefully provide to each association and commune in my village. it will include all the information about the current water supply (where the spring/well/water tower is), how many homes are supplied by the current system, etc., as well as information about the school in the village, the assocation's name, and any other applicable information. ideally this will be translated into arabic or french, you know, so they can read it.

rural health lessons:
as part of the health clinic's responsibility, there is a land rover that goes to the more rural villages (up to 30km away) four times a year to vaccinate children, dispense birth control, and give medical advice. at least once or twice in the next year, i'd like to join them and give some basic health lessons (probably family planning, nutrition, and/or handwashing with soap).


PROJECTS

so, to be perfectly honest, both of my project ideas are entirely overwhelming to me, mostly because of the vast scope and sheer number of steps to complete each. but i will do my best on both of them, and hope that they work out.

solid waste management:
i have done some of the preliminary work on this project. i have talked to the commune president about this project and my ideas, and he seemed supportive of it. basically, this project would invovle making a landfill (i'm still working on finding the land that would be ideal for this - obviously away from the road and any water sources...), fencing it in, providing trash barrels around the center of town, and arranging a person to pick up the trash weekly and bring it to the landfill. i would also like to do a trash pickup in the center of town with the local children. i have started to write this proposal (i'm hoping to get it funded by peace corps small project assistance grant), but i want to get the association in tidili involved more in the process. one of the challenges of this project is also ensuring that it will be funded after an initial grant. peace corps can pay for the landfill and the trash bins, but ensuring that a person could be paid every week to keep up the landfill is essential. i plan to arrange a meeting with the commune president and the association president to work on finding a place as well as talking about possibly a garbage tax to pay the worker. this project would only be in the center or town (getting a trash system going for all of tidili is a little to overwhelming at this point... and i think it would prove ineffective if we tried to do it all at once), and hopefully, if it works out, other villages can use the center system as a model to do their own solid waste managment system.

potable water access project:

this project would be based on the previous volunteer's project. he basically provided an electric pump, connecting pipes, faucets, and bathroom building material to make sure each house in my village (about 30 houses total) had clean running water in their house, as well as bathroom. i like this idea, because it nicely combines the sanitation and hygiene elements of our project framework goals. this project would both be relatively expensive (maybe $5000) and a lot of leg work (in order to figure out who has bathrooms, pricing material, etc), but i think it'd be a great and effective completed project. this is the project i'm hoping to get funded by peace corps project grants (basically people like you can go onto the internet and donate money directly to my project... just keep it in mind... you may get an email in a few months...) although, right now, i'm still in the preliminary stages of this, looking over the grant, talking to different associations to find a good canidate for a project like this, etc. hopefully within the next three or four months, an association can help get this project off the ground.

association training:

this is a project i'd like to have minimal involvment in (as are the goals in development work). but one of the associations in another volunteer's village is putting together an association training. basically, they are inviting associations to train them on types of project and how to manage and fund a project successfully. i have invited one of my associations to attend (they have already done a very successful project that was self-funded), and hopefully they would be interested in doing their own training for the associations in my area.

ok, that's all for now. this is a fairly ambitious list, and i don't think i will get the chance to complete all of the projects i'd like to do.. but what's most important to me is to work with the community and do one or two that they are intested in and commited to. i'd love any comments, suggestions, etc. so feel free to email me and let me know what you think..