The Giggle Project

It's so hard to believe that this is our last week here. In the time since we arrived, my classmates and I have created three distinct and targeted curricula aimed at young mothers, vulnerable youth, and young fathers, respectively. This amounts to more than 150 pages of activities, discussion questions, and facilitator notes. They cover everything from family planning to STI prevention to anger management, goal setting, physical fitness, nutrition, and how to change a diaper. It's incredible that what we've created here will be implemented and go on to hopefully make a difference in the lives of the community we are trying to serve. I am proud of us, fo sure, but I am more humbled by how this organization has been able to serve the needs of these extremely at-risk youth with so few resources. Our boss said she had been wanting to implement something like what we've created for more than a year, but that there was no one available to do it. In creating the curricula, we had to be mindful that there are almost no resources like anatomical models, technology for presenting the material, or examples of most types of family planning. Things like flipchart paper and markers were used sparingly since they are in short supply. Working within these confines taught me a lot about how to do more with less, and also gave me a newfound respect for people who work with youth like this (or any youth, really) in the States and around the world. 

We piloted our demonstration activity yesterday, which involved handing out sexual risk behaviours (think "sex with a condom" "anal sex without a condom" "mutual masturbation" and "Hugging" to name a few) and telling the kids to run to either a green, yellow, or red sign based on the amount of risk they perceived each activity to have. I was really impressed with a) how much they knew about sex at 14,15, 16 years old and b) what they knew about how STIs were transmitted. The giggles were expected, and it was pretty funny to explain oral sex using hand gestures to a 15 year old... 

It's easy to forget sometimes that this country was ravaged (and in some ways still is) by HIV, and these kids' parents' generation is largely deceased. However, there has been so much emphasis on preventing HIV that education about other STIs and unplanned pregnancy have gone by the wayside. That gave us an opportunity to talk about other risky behaviours and what might happen if you're not careful. 

I have learned so much in the past four weeks- not only about nursing, but about healthcare in a larger sense. It is totally different to see the healtcare system from a more clinical perspective and with a knowledge base I didn't have in Bangladesh. It confirms that this is really what I want to do with my life, and I am so glad I had this experience to mesh my passion for Global Health and clinical practice. 

Oh, and I saw like 4 million hippos and the world's largest waterfall last weekend. That was pretty awesome, too. :)