Coming this Spring..

So we have these things in Peace Corps called VRF. Volunteer Reporting Form. They are due every 3 months, and they are the worst things in the world. They take a long time to complete, are annoying, and very comprehensive. BUT, they also make you look forward to thing you will be doing soon. After I wrote this entry in the “Planned Activities” section. I am excited to read this and I thought I should share this with my avid readers (all 2 of you… mom and dad). Enjoy! Oh yeah, I will post the rest of trip to Ethiopia soon. And this is a picture of Me, Tylor, and Aaron on a walk in the snow. This is where Aaron and his wife Lauren live, Shaghat Village, enjoy...

I am currently planning a soccer tournament for my region for late March to early April. There is a lot of interest in playing soccer here, but only a select few participate in an organized fashion. So this will be a small-sided tourney, each team having 5 players: 4 playing and 1 sub. I am trying to partner with the Armenian Football Federation’s “Football in General Schools” program. This program has the same objective as mine basically. I also want to pair this with a Health Fair the same day or weekend, that way we can explain the importance of being active and being involved with sports. We will cover both the physical benefits, as well as the mental and behavioral benefits of participating in organized sports.

I am working with an individual that wants to start a organization with the idea of helping community members with disabilities know their rights, so they wont be taken advantage of. That will hopefully create a more transparent use of government funds in the area of disabled persons right and access.

I am forming a partnership with the Civic Center of Sisian, in which I will hopefully help in their projects that extend out in to the surrounding villages. Their programs cover things like Human Rights Seminars, Health Assertiveness and Community Health Needs, Business Development, and free use of a lawyer for legal consultations.

I am trying to start a geography club at the local Community Center. This would be a club free to all that want to attend. We will speak in Armenian, but they will learn all book related knowledge in English. This is mainly to expand their scope of the world, as well as their English knowledge. It will start with local geography (rivers, mountains, hills, etc.) that way they can connect it to what they know. Then it will branch out into the Caucasus Region, then onto other continents. I also have access to Discovery Channel videos in Russian, which will let them see video’s of some of the places we will be learning about.

I am currently trying to get involved with a Sports School next door to my NGO, which has facilities to train athletes in soccer, basketball, and volleyball. I am trying to for a relationship with the Director so that he will let me use the facilities for local community games and sports clubs. I am toying with the idea of trying to start a few leagues for different sports.

We are currently in the process of planning a poetry contest for Sisian and the surrounding villages. This will be done with all other PCV’s in the area, including myself, and my NGO will sponsor the event. We will have children read, remember, then recite poems in English. They will be judged on many things: pronunciation, recitation, inflection, etc. This is to help let them practice their English, as well as learn how it may be correctly spoken.

I am currently working with a FLEX alumnus that lives in Sisian to write a grant for their FLEX alumni grant. With this grant, we plan to give heat to the local history museum, do small restorations, and provide a summer camp for kids that will take them out to historical sites around Sisian and they will do excavation. This is a brand new project that isn’t fully developed, but is becoming quite impressive in its initial stages.