YCG experience, a fulfilling one

Jul 27, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
It is difficult to sum up all the good that I experienced on the project in Parika with Youth Challenge Guyana. I would definitely have to say the highlight was working in Parika/Salem school with the children.

Although I really enjoyed the HIV/AIDS sessions and the small infrastructure projects that we conducted, I felt the literacy programme in the school was the most effective.

I was disappointed that our presence in the school was short and had to begin so late into the project.
Having just over three weeks in the school was not enough time to me to really see any results. Not to say our presence did not have a positive influence on the students, teachers as well as ourselves.

It was very enriching for me as a challenger to face the difficulty of working with little to no resources as I am used to from home.

Youth Challenge Guyana could have done more work to prepare the volunteers for some of the challenges that we were about to face, none the less this was also an opportunity to enhance our personal strengths and creativity.

We had no idea what to expect from the teachers or students; it was surprising to us, the extent of the literacy dilemma of the students in Parika/Salem.

Much time was spent exploring each student’s academic level and the appropriate teaching strategies.
I understand that most of these problems cannot be helped at present and our group was pleased to be such an integral part of improving the skills of the youth.

Outside of the downtime for the first week of our five-week project everyone was eager to begin work immediately upon confirmation of our activities; the overall project went really well and the ‘challenges’ that I have discussed are really miniscule in comparison to all the good that took place.

The project was hugely influential in all ways positive and my connection to YCG and YCI is not over.

Rebecca Desmarais