24 Junio 2012

The last four days were ALMA.
There isn’t a better way to describe it: ‘alma’-spirit.
Actividades de Lideres Mujeres Adolescentes

It was a 3-day leadership camp for select female adolescent leaders from all over the Department of Arequipa. There were 30 young women participants and 15 volunteers (Peruvian and American) running the camp.
After 6 months of planning, and thousands of dollars of donations from friends, family, strangers and NGOs (Quechua Benefit, Village de Andes, and more) it can’t be described as anything but a success.

The moto of the camp was “Know Your Potential”. We focused on two specific themes: vocational orientation, and health (this included a huge focus on creativity for both themes). Every talk was oriented around learning through play and interactive activities.

The girls arrived Thursday afternoon to be divided into teams with whom they would compete all weekend. They received points for participation, punctuality, answering questions correctly, as well as winning the sports challenges. After icebreakers and name games they had a two-hour obstacle course meant to just be pure fun and getting to know one another. It successfully exhausted them, and they were released to their rooms for monopoly, playing cards, and the movie Tin Tin projected in their dorms.

The first full day the girls were up bright and early after many of their first experience with a hot shower. This day’s theme was Vocational Orientation.
They had a field trip to visit the best university in Arequipa (and one of the best in Peru-UNSA), then received a series of workshops.
The first was given by Mario on professionalism where the girls took an aptitude test and discussed professions that interested them.
Then they got a talk from Chris and Mario about the steps one needs to take in Peru in order to enter University.
This was followed by money management and saving by Tim and Chris. It was the most fun finance talk I have ever seen in my life.
Then I had organized a panel of professional women to come and talk to the young ladies about where they came from, and how they became successful women.
After lunch America taught the girls how to build a resume,
Mila gave a talk on professionalism and communicating with you body (eye contact, hand shaking, etc) linked to a game of charades followed by mock interviews that Amber organized.
At the end of the day they received a workshop from Richard on Spanish-speaking artists, and how the lives of these famous artists influenced their work. The girls then spent a couple hours expressing their emotions through differing artistic mediums.
The day concluded with an egg-drop contest organized by Tim and Amber that lead to many-a-joyously-screaming adolescent.

Each night consisted of breaking off into teams and processing and reflecting on the day. The girls were in their rooms by 9:30pm but the volunteers stayed up until about 11pm or later to prep for the following day’s activities, dreading the 5:30am wake up call we were responsible for making the following morning.

Saturday was focused on Health (physical and mental).
It began with a sexual education talk given by a Peace Corps doctor that we flew down from Lima- Thank you Suni! Not only did the girls learn about the changes happening in their body from someone educated, but they learned about STDs and safe sexual practices.
This was followed by an activity given by Mario and Rocio about healthy relationships discussing family interactions, romantic relationships and male and female stereotypes.
After lunch they had a nutrition workshop given by Tim and myself then I gave the girls a yoga class that discussed the importance of physical and mental fitness as well as learning a new way to meditate.
They then moved on to mask making. With Kim, they talked about how some people are different on the outside than the inside and spent hours making masks to put on their ‘outside’ that expressed their inside, using the ideas of expression from the art talk the day before.
Amber wrapped up the day by talking about setting and meeting goals,
then after dinner Kim and I made a Jeopardy game that reviewed the weekend’s information. The “daily double” questions consisted of each team’s counselors competing against one another in physical challenges. More screaming adolescents. Somewhere in there the girls and all the volunteer counselors played flip cup. No worries, water, not beer.

Sunday morning Amber organized a closing ceremony involving a processing what to walk away from ALMA with (America), as well as a photo show of the camp (Lu and Tim), prizes for winning and non-winning teams(America and Tim), certificates (Mario and Amber), and cake (America and Rocio). Special thanks to Kim and Divya for feeding us all weekend!
Obviously, this was a HUGE team effort.





ALMA is one of the projects I am most proud of for helping organize in my Peace Corps service. Thank you to all of my friends and family who donated money to make this camp happen.