Preschool Teacher Training Day II

A long day is over...

Along with 4 other volunteers, we just finished March Preschool Teacher Training Day.

For total, 45 teachers representing 25 preschools (out of 27 that were invited) participated in it.

This month, we covered the following topic:

• Effects on preschool education (guest speaker: primary school headmaster in the area)
• HIV/AIDS and healthy living
• Hygiene: simple hand wash equipment-making
• Homemade play ground
• Compost and organic farming
• Development of 5 senses
• Song sharing
• Coloring sheet making

Teacher Training Day started thanks to the donation by Finish government. Each month, DIs (Development Instructors = volunteers) organize this event for the preschool teachers who are chosen by their village heads. Almost all of them did NOT complete their primary education. So, you can imagine how challenging it would be for them to teach a variety of subjects and/or activities to the children. We have a lot of work to do to improve their teaching skills.

We do everything from making budgets, sending invitation letters, finding cooks, doing shopping, setting up the training place, preparing and presenting workshops, serving food, dish washing, to cleaning afterwords, except for the actual cooking and translating everything into Chichewa. At the end of the day, we were all exhausted but it gives us a deep sense of fulfillment.

With the budget, we were able to provide a pack of 12 color pencils, a pencil sharpener, 6 bar soaps, and 1 kg of soy beans for each school, in exchange of not buying soda and pens for the participating teachers, which made them little upset. I found it every interesting.

After November, there will be no more funding from Finland. I wonder how would these teachers react if we don't provide them with breakfast and lunch...

I need to get my own income generation activities (IGAs) going.