SeneGAD – Peace Corps Senegal Gender and Development Committee

During these first few months of service, I have learned there are a plethora of PC Senegal efforts that coincide with our primary four fields of service (Agriculture, Health, Environmental Education, and Community Economic Development), but don’t necessary have a dedicated corps of volunteers.

One of these groups is known as SeneGAD. To briefly explain what SeneGAD is, I have paraphrased information from the SeneGAD blog:

SeneGAD is a country-wide initiative organized by Peace Corps Senegal volunteers to focus and tackle gender issues in our communities.  The mission of SeneGAD is to empower Senegalese women, men and youth to effectively integrate gender equality into their daily lives, with the support of Peace Corps Volunteers. The committee provides resources and support to volunteers to enable their activities as well as coordinating and managing large-scale projects that volunteers around the country participate in.

In August, I joined the SeneGAD committee as a regional representative for the volunteers located in the Thies and Dakar regions and attended my first quarterly meeting the end of October. As a regional representative  my duties include:

(1) motivating volunteers in your region to report GADeeds

(2) attending and participating in quarterly meetings;

(3) submitting updates to the communications coordinators to use in the GAD Gab, our bi-annual newsletter; and

(4) acting as a liaison for a girls’ scholarship fund.

The meeting was really interesting and I need to start doing my part! One project that is receiving a surge in promotion is “MAP”, the Men As Partners training. It is the chance to have a male Peace Corps Senegal Cultural Facilitator come to your site and address a group of young men to talk about the role of males in Senegal. It was developed with the aim to help motivate men in Senegal to be strong role models in their community. There are several activities geared towards girls and young women (for instance, the Girls Leadership Camp that took place in September where I worked for a few days as a supporting Counselor), so the board of SeneGAD is trying to equal the scales by promoting male-orientated talks. During the meeting, it was also brought to the attention of the group that SeneGAD has come scrutiny for demonstrating the impact that they have. This coincides with the emphasis that PC SN has on Monitoring and Evaluation techniques. While it feels a bit like being scolded, it will ultimately be a great practice in creating quantitative data for all the good that the committee does perform year after year. I’m looking forward to attending future meetings and playing my part in helping to coordinate activities and see that SeneGAD continues for generations of volunteers to come!

To read more about SeneGAD, check out the blog:  http://senegad.wordpress.com/ .

“Peace Corps Guilt” by Esther Katcoff

The article, “Peace Corps Guilt” by Esther Katchoff, originally published November 1st, 2012 on huffingtonpost.com, recently popped up in my Facebook news feed courtesy of a fellow PCV in Senegal.

In my opinion, this article warrants a blog post because the author does a wonderful job of articulating some of the challenges PCVs face in their daily lives at site. I found it interesting that I’ve had almost exactly the same experiences at my site as the author has had at her site despite the fact that I’m in West Africa and she is in South America. I definitely relate to what she has written about and part of the reason why I want to share the article on my blog is to borrow her words because “if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” (thank you, Mr. Issac Newton).

After reading this essay, I want to make two points:

1) A long time ago, I realized that in this world, we are more a like than we are different. It is true. I see it every day. I wish more people believed this because I think it would help make the world a better place. I would go on, but I don’t want to interfere with your own thoughts and reflections on my observation. I’d be interested in your thoughts if you care to send me an email (I always love to hear from YOU!).

2) The author mentions the third goal of Peace Corps. For a quick recap, here is the statement taken directly from the Peace Corps website (http://www.peacecorps.gov/about/mission/):

“In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship.

The Peace Corps’ mission has three simple goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.”

Just as the author fulfills goal number three through her article, I try to fulfill goal number three by keeping a blog. You can meet me half way and continue to read and share my blog. So, thank you for reading and coming back for more, and please read the article by Ms. Katcoff!

One last note – apologies to my family members who subscribe to my blog because I already sent this article to them in a separate email.

Happy Mo-vember!

J xoxo