By Christa Pugh
When I arrived at site last year, I was excited to find that eight of my new students had attended Rwanda‘s first Camp GLOW in 2009. These students returned to our school motivated and eager to start a club with the help of my site-mate, health PCV (now RPCV) Tricia Vannatter. I was recruited somewhere along the way to serve as the club‘s co-coordinator, and since that time, working with the GLOW Club has become one of my favorite activities at school.
Helping students start and maintain a GLOW club is a very rewarding secondary project for teachers. To start a GLOW club, begin by identifying student leaders and meeting with them to discuss club leadership and topics for meetings. Talking with girls at your school who have attended Camp GLOW is a great place to start. Ask them what they learned at camp, what they want to teach their peers, and who can fill leadership positions.
Even if these girls aren‘t interested in starting a club, or you don‘t have students who have attended Camp GLOW in the past, you can still start a GLOW club. Choose a few girls from your classes who are smart, motivated, and good leaders to help you get started. Once the club is established, you can hold an election to fill leadership positions, but I would recommend choosing at least a president and vice-president whom you already know and with whom you can work. The Peace Corps Life Skills Manual can help you come up with topics – download it at http://www.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/library M0063_lifeskillscomplete.pdf. or you can get a copy off the SharePoint (it’s big though so be ready).
I see my role in the club as providing sup-port to the student leaders and helping them ac-cess information and materials. It‘s important to me that the club is student-led. By leading these meetings, the club‘s president and other officers are developing their own leadership and public speaking abilities. Plus, I think that students are more receptive to information when it comes from a peer rather than a teacher. With that in mind, I attend every meeting, but I try to stay as hands-off as possible. If necessary, a PCV could provide more support by meeting weekly with the club‘s leaders to help them prepare for the general meeting.
At my school‘s first GLOW Club meeting, returned GLOW campers shared their camp experience and talked about the meaning of GLOW. Now, a typical meeting consists of the club president sharing information and activities from Camp GLOW about goals, deci-sion making, safe sex, HIV/AIDS, and other topics. The meetings of-ten start with an icebreaker activity they learned at camp, or by singing a club anthem my students wrote about why they love GLOW (writing a club an-them, pledge, or slogan is a great club activity for one of your first meetings!). I‘m on hand to an-swer questions the club president can‘t answer and correct any misinformation, and I usually wrap up each meeting with a closing statement as the students always want to know my "advice" about whatever topic we‘re discussing. I some-imes help the students with ideas and materials for creative projects (see the end of this article for some ideas).
Last year, our most successful meetings occurred when Tricia and I asked our students to come up with a way to teach the ideas of GLOW to others. All by themselves, the students wrote a skit and songs in English that touched on ideas about sugar daddies, being empowered to say "no", setting goals, and family planning. They gave a presentation first at our school, and later at the sector office for students from a neighboring secondary school. The presentations included community speakers about HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, and child rights. This project en-couraged club unity by giving students from Senior 1 to Senior 6 a project to work on together; increased their self-esteem by allowing them to see a project through from beginning to end successfully and receive positive feedback from our headmistress, sector officials, and their peers; gave them an opportunity to practice presenting in front of a large group of people with confidence; and presented a valuable message to about 1,000 students from my sector! Watching these presentations is one of the highlights of my service thus far, and I feel fortunate and proud to be able to continue to work with these girls on a weekly basis.
Here are some ideas for creative activities.Disclaimer: My club has already done some of these activities but some are in the queue for the next two terms. Some are my own ideas and some are based on a GLOW Club curriculum written by an unnamed PCV from Sabina, Uganda. Also, even if a project idea comes from you, try to give the students opportu-nities for leadership as much as possible – for example, explain the activity to a few students and let them communicate it to others, or simply suggest an activity and then step back and let them take over.
| Bring in speakers from the community. For example, three women from the HIV/AIDS group at Tricia‘s hospital presented about liv-ing with the disease and allowed the girls to ask questions. You could also host female busi-ness or government leaders. |
| Friendship bracelets are a fun project if you can get someone from home to send you em-broidery floss! I used a pattern from www.makingfriends.com/ jewely/bracelet_klutz.htm. Using this pattern, one skein of floss (about 9-10 yards) is enough for about three bracelets. Teach a small group of girls how to make bracelets ahead of time, and allow those girls to teach their peers. |
| Have a talent show – either within your club or your club can host one for the entire school. Use it as an opportunity to talk about express-ing yourself (encourage them to write their own poems, songs, and stories!) and speaking loudly and confidently in front of a group. |
| Ask the girls to anonymously write down any questions they have about sex, sexuality, or relationships. Answer the questions yourself, help the club leaders answer them correctly if they feel comfortable doing so, or bring in a guest speaker to answer (this is a great oppor-tunity for Health and Ed PCVs to collaborate!). |
| Teach the girls to journal. Buy a cheap note-book for each student and allow them to deco-rate the covers with stickers and markers, if you have them. Talk to them about what journaling is – a way to remember experiences and think through problems and ideas in writing. Stress that a journal is private, and that there is no right or wrong, they can write about any-thing they want, in any language. One good starting activity is to ask the students to spend 10 minutes writing sentences starting with "I want", "I think", and/or "I feel." Other journal topic ideas: What is leadership? What are the qualities of a good leader? What are your goals for the future? Describe a woman you admire. What do you like most about yourself? What are the qualities of a good friend? Write about a time when you were a good friend to someone. Write about a time when you had a problem and found a solution to that problem. |
| Give the students situations and have them role-play to practice being assertive, making good decisions, and giving good advice to their friends. For example, have the girls role-play insisting that a sexual partner uses a condom. |
Note: Be on the lookout for the upcoming GLOW & BE clubs manual within the next month or so. Questions? Contact camp-glowrwanda@gmail.com.
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