Week 1 Complete!

Hi everyone, this is Manny, Shannen, Haylee and Shannon, and we are just finishing up our first week here in Georgetown, Guyana! After arriving in Georgetown from the red eye flight out of Toronto, Ontario, we travelled to our new home for the next 7 weeks.

This week we mainly focused on obtaining approval from the Ministry of Education to engage with youth in the public school system. We also all got a chance to teach our first lessons in the classroom, which was incredibly exciting! These lessons were primarily introductions about ourselves, the organization, and mental health topics.

We also had the opportunity to begin collaborations with the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA). The GRPA has an established volunteer peer education program, and we have planned several training sessions with them to engage in mutual learning experiences.

Not only did we start discussions about physical, sexual and mental health with youth, we also got to participate in the ‘NTN This Morning’ news segment where we discussed the topics of stress and physical activity. Despite our nerves, we had a lot of fun with our first experience on national television and we look forward to improving as the week’s progress.

On our Tuesday and Thursday evenings we have, and plan to continue, spending our time at Ruimveldt Children’s Aid Centre. There we are able to engage with youth at the centre and assist the incredibly hard-working staff wherever possible.

This Sunday we had the opportunity to attend a sporting day in Georgetown where Manny got the chance to play with Georgetown’s regional cricket team! We had an incredible day watching track, cycling, football and cricket. We cannot wait to see what the next weeks have to hold!