Dani Bulinski

As I mentioned in the last post, Peace Corps Paraguay is in the middle of a training cycle with a new group of community health and community economic development volunteers. The trainees have multiple excursions throughout their 10 weeks, including a field trip to my site!

I checked out a Grassroots Soccer kit from our office earlier this month which includes all of the materials to run the program. In preparation for their visit I handed out invites to my 50 some high school students and got 21 signed up. However, I was told the Thursday before the trainees were coming that many of the students would be participating in a mandatory Church Retreat in preparation for their confirmation in the following weeks. Flexibility! We went ahead and ran the program anyway and just had the trainees join in the games too and had a great time.

First I gave an introduction along with some basic information on HIV/AIDS. There is a lot of misinformation about the topic here, so we kept things pretty basic.

Our first game was called "Risk Field." Each cone represented a risk behavior- "Unprotected Sex" or "Multiple Partners" for example. It was a relay race through the cones and if you touched one, there was a penalty exercise (push ups/jumping jacks). In the first round, your actions only affected you (ie only the person dribbling had to do the exercise, in the second your entire team was affected, and in the third everyone present did the exercises. The trainees did a great job facilitating!

Our second game was called "Break Away from HIV." Participants were split into two teams, one team was the players and the other team was HIV. They raced to their "goals," with the player having a second or two head-start.

As the game progressed, the players had to dribble one, then two soccer balls as "HIV" pursued them. In the discussion afterwards we talked about how people who are HIV positives have to work much harder to achieve their goals.

After the games, we took some time to drink terere in the shade and just hang out. Even though we had a change in plans, it was a fun morning and my students are excited to continue the program in the coming weeks. Thanks to the trainees for helping and to Cristian for the pictures!