#Worlduniteinternship

[m13-christinamoraaorina]

Time for Learning Objevtive Updates

Now I have been here for a loooong time, and today I actually have exactly 3 weeks left of my stay here in Zanzibar. It has been interesting and I have learned so much, but I also feel that I am ready to go back home now!

So let’s look at my learning objectives and how far I am:

1.       Participating & Managing Girls Club

Yesterday, we had a very successful Girls Club meeting. It was the first time we had a meeting since I came, and I was the one organizing and managing it. I was added to a Girls Club whatsapp group, where 5 members were already in. The plan was to have a meeting together with girls from another school, but they were not able to come anyways. BUT, the meeting was AMAZING and we had such a good time. I had planned to tell about Physical Activity, benefits, risks, mode, intensity, duration etc. But since the meeting started 1 hour later (very typical Zanzibar time! But I am getting more and more used to it), we only had 1 hour, so we did a physical activity session instead. The girls changed clothes, we covered the door so no one could see us (religious reasons), and then I put on music and lead the session. And we laughed, sweat, enjoyed and it was so much fun. I don’t have any photos, because it would be extremely disrespectful of me to take photos of the girls and post them, when they were not wearing their scarfs.

So, for next Sunday, we plan to meet again, and then we want to talk about goals and visions for the Girls Club, and I will educate them in the topics that we didn’t have time to go through yesterday!

2.       Work on the Nutritional Manual

I have worked using the nutritional manual which had already been developed by two previous interns. But I found some few mistakes that I have corrected, and I have taught nutrition classes to Chakula Hai group based on the Nutritional Manual. I have not used Supertracker, or investigated nutritional improvements fro growing children, since that was not part of what my internship placement wanted me to do. On the other hand, I am in the process of developing a Nutritional Dinner Service Manual, which is going to be a tool from which Chakula Hai Educational Team members, can educate dinner guests in the nutrition of the meal that will be served at the Chakula Hai events. I have also done a little bit of work on the marketing of Chakula Hai, and I have developed a Facebook page with information, and I update it with photos etc.

I have not exactly arranged a cooking class, but we did have a little pancake session at my house on Saturday, when I invited 6 of the boys from the school to my home, because they really wanted to visit. We had such a great time, and they were very thankful and happy to be invited. I taught one of them how to make pancakes, and we all enjoyed them together. After that we went to Forodhani, where there is a habour, where they swam.

3.       Participating in Women’s Group

Since this Group is not excisting, I haven’t done this. BUT I have educated in health and talked about health related topics in Chakula Hai group, which was very interesting. It was also a great experience for me to be the teacher, and not the student as I am used to. I found out how much preparation that is necessary, I found out one have to be very patient, and I also found out that it is much more fun to teach motivated students than students who are not motivated!

4.       Field Work

I have been developing, editing re-editing etc. my interview guide, for approximately 2 months now, but now I am finally satisfied, and I got help from my Swahili Teacher, a staff from the school, and a Form 4 student, to translate and edit my interview guide into Kiswahili. I have also developed a form for Infromed Consent, which they also helped me translating into Kiswahili. So now I need to print it, and then the plan is that I and Feisal (who is a form 4 student and is very good in English AND Kiswahili), will go to a place called Darajabovu, where there have been cholera cases. There he will do the interviews by following the Swahili interview guide, and I will observe and take notes.

 So that is  how it is going. I am very satisfied with what I have gained from my experiences so far, now I am just looking forward to having the interviews done! Because I know the transcription and translation will be VERY timeconsuming!