For those dedicated few who keep up with the blog and actually read the emails, you may have noticed a decided lack of information on the projects that I am doing here. There are reasons for this, the largest one being that I am probably incredibly frustrated with whichever project I am working on and therefore don’t want to TALK ABOUT IT… ahem… deep breath… However, I thought that I should give an overview of some of the activities that have kept me busy lately. Here we go…
Last week we completed a 6-week computer class that Liz (a volunteer that lives close to me) and I gave to 24 interested artisans. During the class we covered the basics, and by basics I mean the stuff that most of us do without thinking: how to double click, the difference between right click and left click, how to open programs such as Microsoft Word, typing, etc. We held the classes in a town about 5 minutes away (remember, no computers in my town), and had participants from four different towns. When we started, double clicking was a big issue, and well, after 6 weeks I’m afraid it still was a bit of a problem. Nonetheless, by the final exam the majority of the class (those still attending) was able to find a picture of a product on the internet, clear the background of the photo with Paint, create a table in Microsoft Word, insert the photo, and type in the measurements and important info. Therefore, in the future when they took pictures of their products, they could create a catalog (albeit a simple one) using Microsoft Word. It’s not much, but it’s a start. In April we’ll start an intermediate course (opening an email account, how to attach files, write professional letters, and of course, more typing practice) for those who passed the final exam, and we’ll also be doing another basic class.
Right now I’m in the middle of a business plan course, which is a course put on by a government agency and is designed to take the artisans through the steps necessary to export. I won’t say much about this course, other than it takes up a ridiculous amount of time and I always leave wanting to run head first into the nearest pole. Basically, there are some good intentions there, but the professors are inefficient and the material is unrealistic (anyone know how to find the economic demographics of Spain’s population?). In other words, it’s frustrating. Luckily, there are only a few more weeks left.
At the end of January, I went to Chiclayo (a department capital about 3 hours away) to lead a workshop on color combinations with another volunteer’s group. It was basically just a 3 hour long class where we discussed different methods of combining colors and did a few activities with what we had learned. I’ll be going back at the end of this month to take the theories that they learned and have them apply them to their products. In the meantime, next week I’ll be doing the same thing with my two groups, only I’ll be doing all of it in a three-day course. I enjoy this type of teaching, possibly because I get to play around with colors and designs, two things I really enjoy.
Word has leaked out that I like those types of projects and I have been filling in my schedule with design projects. So far, I have designed logos for tshirts for a youth volunteer, as well as shirts for another artisan group. I’m currently working on a design for a new small business logo and the logo for the boys’ camp that is coming up in June. And as always, I am searching the internet for new product ideas for my own groups.
This weekend, I’ll be helping out another volunteer with her Jovenes Emprendedores (Young Entrepreneurs) group by teaching Finance and Accounting. My only other youth project I have going on right now is the World Map we are painting at the high school. However, school just started up again this week, and I am hoping to get a couple projects going over the next few months.
And… yeah, that’s about it for this month. Lots of varied work. Some successes, plenty of frustrations.
