All I want for Chirstmas...December

School is out and I am still running around the village like a mad woman. I went on a mini vacation to Eastern Province to visit friends (picture soon) before they finished their services. I got back to the village and had programs in the village scheduled but they got canceled due to 'lack of materials'. What materials? CONDOMS! I will be doing village talks on HIV, VCT (voluntary counseling and testing for HIV) as well as condom demonstrations. In conjunction with this I also want to do condom distribution in these villages. I searched everywhere for condoms. No one has them. I finally went to my provincial capital (where I have the luxury of typing this entry)and got more condoms than I can carry home. I'm excited to do these sensitization in the village. It will be interesting to see how people respond, especially to the condom demonstrations. Ive had more people recently asking me for and about condoms, especially the female condoms, so this is a great chance to educate my community. The topic is taboo in the sense that I am a women, HIV has a huge stigma and the people in my area are very traditional. They all think I'm crazy anyway essentially because I left America to live in a rural village in Zambia, but they do respect me and what I have to say. My PEPFAR counterpart/ best friend in the village will help me with translating and also discuss VCT. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well! In addition to this little project I have 2 HUGE projects I'm still working on. Camp GLOW and books for the Resource Center.
Its time for Camp GLOW planning and fund raising again. This year the Camp will be held during the week of December 11-17 in my district of Mpika. GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World. Camp GLOW is a week long girls empowerment camp where each volunteer brings two girls & a counterpart to learn life skills, increase their confidence, instill leadership and to begin developing girl groups at their perspective schools. There will be separate sessions for the counterparts and the girls and all the sessions for the girls are done in local language. Last year the sessions for the girls dealt with self-esteem, assertiveness, sexual violence, early marriage/pregnancy and establishing goals. All of the counterpart sessions were focused on how to facilitate these sessions in their school clubs. Along with the sessions there are a lot of games, songs and my personal favorite....CRAFTS! The Camp was very successful last year and has been one of my favorite projects so far. BUT all the money from the camp is donated. This is where you all come in. If you are interested in helping me, there is a link on the peace corps website where you are able to donate. All money that is donated for the camp will go through this website and we will receive it in one lump sum. If you want to send materials for the camp you can mail them to me. Last year Little Debbie donated snacks for our big party at the end of the week and several people donated art supplies for our crafts and balls/games for our activities. Please help us out. This camp is great for the girls. My girls are more confident since the camp and it really is something that is uplifting and empowering for everyone evolved! Here's the link to the donation page:

If the link doesn't work the project number to enter on the page is 611-071 and the volunteer name is SMITH.
Another BIG project I am doing is gathering books for our Resource Center. I have been trying for months to gather books locally and I have received a few but we need more. The Resource Center is still empty. This Center is in the middle of my zone that covers 5 government schools and 2 community schools. The center is open to everyone in the community so the books will be utilized by several people. I envision the resource center as a place to gather materials for the teachers developing lesson plans, for continuing professional development, possibly having a reading corner where teachers and parents can read to their pupils, where pupils can study and increase their reading interest. While the gathering of the books is "easy" in the sense that textbooks, resource books, fiction and non-fiction book and any other type of books are welcomed but the shipping of the books from America to Zambia will be costly. Maybe if any groups are wanting to do projects for Christmas/December or just want to take on any volunteering projects this would be something they are interested in. Everything is welcomed and helps in the stocking of this Center. Once the books start coming in, I will train teachers at the school where the center is located in how to catalog and store the books so they can even be checked out. If enough books get donated, there is even the opportunity to develop class libraries at the community schools which are several kilometers away from the cente