Facts for Life

A typical weekday at IICD-MA begins with the morning class. Monday through Friday, all the teams on the mountain, which currently include TCE, Mozambique, Angola, and Brazil, meet every day at 8:00 am. Usually, Lynn Matthews, a teacher at IICD-MA, presents information and leads the class in discussions, with support from the other teachers Nique Spencer and Joao Da Cruz. The discussions become lessons in topics ranging from communicating with people about HIV/AIDS, including problem solving and decision-making, to questioning influences on personal and cultural values. Whatever the focus might be, the aim of our morning class is to share information in preparation for our volunteer work and practice presenting to a group of people.

Last week and most of this week, the Mozambique and Brazil teams began this practice in a real way. We students were given the responsibility of teaching each other at our morning class, while the IICD-MA staff participated in their annual intensive organization week. This week consists of enrolling new students, updating databases and the IICD-MA website, writing flyers and pamphlets and doing outreach, such as posting flyers and networking with people to promote IICD.

Accepting the role as teacher gave each of us an opportunity to explore our teaching and communicating abilities. We focused on the third edition of Facts for Life published by UNICEF in 2002. This publication provides advice on safe motherhood, breastfeeding, child development nutrition and growth, immunization, diarrhea, malaria, HIV/AIDS and much more.

Each of us chose a topic, each presenting on a different day. We all implemented our own styles to convey the information. Shira, for example, was the first to go. She introduced us to the Facts for Life, explaining ways to communicate them to others. She used a few methods to present this information. The following is one method. After separating the class into groups, she asked each group a question. Each group wrote their response in the form of a problem and the solution to the problem. For example, she asked, “What are some barriers to communication?” The group responded with, “language and cultural and religious beliefs.” The solutions given to overcome these barriers were to learn the language, use pictures, skits and games to transmit key messages and thoroughly listen to the people we will interact with. She also used role-playing, posters and pictures to share her facts with us.

Every person who presented gave effort to deliver the new knowledge in an interesting and memorable fashion. We received knowledge beyond information from the Facts for Life publication. Every day, a new insightful discussion would arise. Some topics were, how to approach the situation in which a person knows the facts about how to treat a disease but has cultural beliefs prohibiting him or her from using the treatment;how we view female circumcision, considering that we are on the outside of this cultural practice, which gives us a very different view; what our perspectives on public breastfeeding are; and how we view spanking children as a form of punishment. These discussions, in addition to the presentations, have provided very valuable information, which help us to prepare for conditions in Africa and Brazil as volunteers.