PCCR: Child, Youth and Families Program

March 23, 2009

Peace Corps currently has three programs in Costa Rica: Rural Community Development (RCD), Community Economic Development (CED), and Child, Youth, and Families (CYF). I am training to be a CYF volunteer, and for those of you who are interested in what that entails, this is your lucky day. For those of you who just want to hear me rant about the food I’m eating, I invite you to read all of my previous posts, and to skip this one.

The purpose of the CYF program is to empower children, youth and families who are living in difficult environments with “the education, skills, and resources necessary to guarantee their rights under the Convention of the Rights of the Child.” In an effort to achieve the goals of the program, volunteers serve as positive role models and facilitators to help youth and families in their communities 1) to develop life skills and healthy living practices, 2) to engage in voluntary service and development activities, and 3) to be prepared with academic and professional formation needed to succeed in the workforce. CYF volunteers work with individuals, service providers, and community organizations in their attempts to create community-based development that can be sustained once the volunteer leaves. There is a heavy emphasis on the role of the volunteer as a facilitator, as opposed to a leader or lecturer, in the community. We are not being trained to know what a community needs or how to go into a community and create change. Our training teaches us how to implement tools that allow community members themselves to identify their own areas of need, and to facilitate the creation and implementation of projects that address those community-selected areas of need.

Although I have worked with young people and families for years, the world of international development is something that is fascinating, but completely foreign to me. I learned an overwhelming amount in our first and only program meeting thus far, and am looking forward to improving my competence in this area. Over the next week we need to find a group in our training community with whom to collaborate on a service learning project over the following 10 weeks. My host mother teaches religious school to pre-adolescents, so I’m thinking about asking her if they would be interested. I’ll keep you posted on that project.

Now, if you have read all of this and feel relieved that I have yet to mention my struggle with the food, you might want to stop here. As for the rest of you, here’s my food story of the day. I was super excited because we were having soup for lunch, and it did not sound like it was a ceamy soup, so really how can you go wrong with that, right? Wrong. You can take a delicious combination of fantastic, beautiful, healthy local vegetables, and then add sliced up cow stomach to the mix…that’s how. This “meat” looks like and has the consistency of raw chicken skin and raw steak fat. As appealing as that was, I decided to eat around it. Although about 8 of us were eating together, I knew my host mother would find a way to see my bowl before I got to the kitchen, to see if I ate the stomachy deliciousness. Find the bowl she did, and proceeded to ask me in front of my abuela (who had made the soup), “Morgan, you don’t like the mondongo???” One week ago this would have embarrassed me, and I would have been mortified that abuela would be offended, but at this point I’ve established myself as loveable and adorable enough for them to look past my pickiness.

I’m off to jump rope out front while the children in the neighborhood walk by and watch me like I’m some sort of circus act. Not only am I out there jumping rope in public, but all of the houses here are engaged by strong iron gates called portons, so I look like I am in a cage while I exercise.