June 28, 2016 – In my experiences today, how we identify and understand the desires of the people have an astounding effect on how we continue our partnerships here in Paraguay. For instance, while we may think that the community needs to focus on its economic, educational, or social issues, the kids in the community want to focus on other aspects of their neighborhood, such as recreation. Our group is conducting three projects with the TeleCentro community center, a place where students come to hang out and take classes. It also serves as a civil registry. While conducting our projects, our expectations of what the community needs have not always been exactly what our Paraguayan partners wanted.
My group was sent to the local school to come up with a lesson plan for a group of local second and third graders on Friday. When I walked into the classroom, I was surprised at what the students were learning. The class didn’t have many materials, but the students were energetic to learn what was being taught. We wanted to focus on a math lesson for the kids and play a game with them. However, the teacher wanted to focus on health due to the current Dengue epidemic in the country, and specifically, on how to combat it. While our lesson was created to fit what we were familiar with and can discuss in Spanish, the teacher wanted a lesson based upon the current preventing the virus – something we did not have the skills or knowledge to teach about the virus. This was honestly one of the most difficult situations I’ve dealt with on desires versus what we thought we could provide.
The past few days have been difficult trying to establish sound connections due to the language barrier. Many kids at the community center are friendly, and they are very nice when I try to speak Spanish. The language barrier was a challenge itself, but we were able to compromise on how to overcome this issue by agreeing to teach basic health in our lesson plan.
Brea P., Parkdale High School