Sorry I forgot about this thing

So I haven't written in my blog for over a month. Oops. I guess things started to slow down and settle into more of a routine since right after my last post, but then picked up so quickly I didn't have time to post another.
On Wednesday, Jenny, Vahid, and I presented our HIV/AIDS session to the group at HIFY, which went pretty well but needed some modification after. I will be preparing and presenting a workshop on healthy relationships and self esteem to a small (10-12) group of immigrant women from all around the world. Apparantly their English is VERY basic, so they won't answer any questions I ask them and won't read anything I have written, so that should be a good challenge.
We had our mid-project activity at Crieff (so close to Guelph!) the last weekend in October. All 20 of us (18 participants + 2 project supervisors) lived in the same gigantic house and took turns cooking meals, etc. It was pretty awesome, and I wish we were all living together in one house in India (apparantly they've done this in the past). Instead it sounds like we'll be really spread out over the gigantic city, and might not see too much of each other anymore.
Since my last post we also helped out at a conference in Toronto called the Global Citizens Forum about creating social change through a variety of means (i.e. photography, documentary making, etc.). It was really interesting and I met a lot of really cool people who were doing a lot within their own lives to make a difference. For example, there was a man from Almonte (a really small town near Brendan's cottage I canoed through last summer) who went to Haiti with 30 disposable cameras, taught kids how to use them, and sold the pictures back in Canada as a fundraiser for their community.
As the days countdown to leave for India (19 to go!), I've really been realizing the importance of this phase of the program, and am trying to appreciate every day for what it's worth. Today Sharon is taking Annu and I up to Gravenhurst to visit her daughter and grandchildren and we will be back tomorrow in time for a movie night with the girls from the program.
I'll try to blog again soon! :)

One month down, five to go.

This past weekend was packed with birthday celebrations and turkey dinners. My cold has finally gone away after two weeks. AND I managed to extend my free gym membership another two weeks.
We found out all the CWY participants will be helping out with a conference in Toronto on October 25-27 and Annu and I will be staying with a close high school friend, so I'm excited to see her and get out of Hamilton for a couple days.
I'm still loving my volunteer placement. On Tuesday Chip took me with him to Parkview, a small (300 student) vocational school where HIFY runs the Risk Reduction program as a scheduled course for a small number of students. On Wednesday I again helped run the internal (at HIFY) Risk Reduction program on STIs. Today (Thursday) we had six girls from a local youth home in to see the clinic and ask questions. It's really interesting to interact so frequently with a demographic of the population that I have had such little exposure to, especially in this context, and I really appreciate the challenges it brings.

Settling into HIFY

So I've had a cold for about 9 days and it SUCKS. I haven't blogged because I've been sick and tired, and I've also realized that a lot of what I have to say is not appropriate to put on here, so if you want the real deal you will just have to email me.

I'm FINALLY getting established at my volunteer placement. I've been doing everything the nurses working there do, like pregnancy tests (so far all negative), STI screens, and just recently starting girls on birth control! It's really different from anything I've ever done, but I really like it. It's really frustrating to see some of the things that kids out there are doing, like sex trade and trying to get pregnant at fourteen. But you do what you can.
I've also been helping out with the workshops run through HIFY. Last night I co-facilitated a session on 'Safer Sex' for nineteen youth aged 14-18, many of which are street-involved. It went pretty well for being my first time doing anything like that, and I look forward to helping with a few more.

Tomorrow I'm going with Sharon (my host mom) and Annu (my counterpart) to Niagara Falls. Saturday dinner will be with the all the CWY participants, and Sunday dinner will be with Sharon's family.

So today I....

...walked the AIDS Walk route two more times.
...was on local TV promoting the AIDS Walk.
...went out for amazing (& cheap) Vietnamese food.
...met with the physician at HIFY.
...got permission from the Executive Director and the President of the Board at HIFY to practice as an RN at HIFY.
...got the physician to change the wording on the medical directives to include me in being able to prescribe and renew prescriptions for birth control (OCP/patch/nuva ring/depo) at HIFY.
...met Silken Laumann (and got her autograph and a picture with her).

And tomorrow... Tiger Cats game!!

Working, Finally!!!

The last week has been a slow one. Each day I've been anxiously waiting to get involved and actually start getting some work done, which finally came today! I've been placed at HIFY (Health Initiatives For Youth, Hamilton) for Tuesday - Thursday of each week. It was the most relevant to nursing, and seems like it will be a good fit. Each day Tuesday to Friday HIFY runs a clinic for three hours, primarily for young girls under 20, but has services for everyone. There are two nurses - an RN and an RPN - who work during the clinic hours and they both seem great. I'll also be helping with two weekly programs, a Rainbow Drop-In each Tuesday for two hours for LGBTQ youth, and a Risk Reduction program for youth who have, for the most part been court-ordered to attend. In the rest of the time I'm at HIFY, I'll be working with two other CWY participants (Jenny & Vahid) to revamp their pamphlets on STIs and birth control, create a presentation on HIFY's services, and research & develop an HIV/AIDS session for the Risk Reduction program. Tomorrow we're working on promo stuff for the Hamilton AIDS Walk that's coming up on Sunday, and tomorrow night I'm going with my host mom to see Silken Laumann speak. I've also been getting more and more into my Hindi learning, and think it's really interesting.
Below are some long overdue pictures, so enjoy!

First Few Days in Hamilton

After about a week of non-stop team exercises about sharing expectations and observations, everyone is pretty anxious to get on with the volunteer work. This morning we saw the launch of a program called 'the couch project' which is aimed at preventing youth from ending up on the street. It was interesting and involved a lot of the same people we'll be working with in the communities. Then we had to turn a tourist map of Hamilton into a more realistic map of Hamilton by asking random people about areas they liked/disliked or saw as positive things or issues. It turns out there are a few parks, two bath houses and porno theatres where men have casual sex with men and sex trades often occur - these were not marked on the tourist map. A few people had some really positive things to say, like about areas that used to be more industrialized and were 'taken back' and utilized by the community for events, etc, and some places where 'socially conscious' people like to go and share good food and art. Overall the exercise was really eye-opening, but as I said, most of us are pretty anxious to begin our volunteer placements!!
The program is begining to seem less and less organized as we go - the Indian participants all seem to think that the counterpart pairs will live at home with their families when we go to India in December, but we still haven't been told if we're allowed to have family/friends visit us in Hamilton. Apparantly one participant knows someone who was kicked out of a CWY program because her boyfriend visited after the project supervisors (/team?) decided that visitors should not be allowed since not everyone can have visitors. I think that's absolutely insane.
Tomorrow we have the morning off, and it's my last night having to share a bed, so I'm looking forward to that! I think Friday we find out where our volunteer placements will be, and I suspect I'll be working at Health Initiatives for Youth Hamilton (http://www.hifyhamilton.com/) , HOPEFULLY with some RN skills thrown in.

Orientation Camp & First Night in Hamilton

Sorry to everyone who's been waiting for a blog entry - if that is anyone. I didn't have computer access for the first four days, and things have just been sooo busy I've hardly had time to write.

The orientation camp for the program included all of the Canadian participants in my group as well as the Canadian participants doing an Orangeville/rural India exchange in social services. The people in my group are Amrit, Barbara, Jared, Jenny, Katrina, Stephanie, Stephen, and Wafaa, and we all get along incredibly well. During the few days living in cabins, we did some teambuilding stuff, reading and discussing an article and poem, sharing our limited and humourous knowledge of Hindi, and sharing our desires and expectations for the next six months. We were responsible for planning welcoming activities for the participants arriving from India, so we spend the good part of Thursday making posters and cleaning up. I had no idea what to expect - if they'd step off the bus in saris or the same clothes we were wearing, how much English they would know, etc.
They arrived around 4:00pm on Thursday wearing very similar clothes as us, some even with English writing on it, and everyone was basically fluent in English. In fact, they mostly spoke 'Hinglish' with each other (mostly Hindi with a few English words thrown in). That night we made a nice bonfire and introduced them to S'mores which were a big hit never heard of by them.
On Friday we got to find out who our counterparts were, and I was paired with the sweetest girl ever, named Annu. She is only 17 - the youngest in the group by far, but is very easy going and mature. We had a nice conversation once we were told we were together, and she told me that when they were driving in on the bus and saw all of our houses with pointed roofs they thought they all looked like 'dream homes' since houses don't have roofs like that in India. When they saw our toilets they were sure to remind us that they would NOT be like that in India - just holes in the ground.
Friday afternoon we got to find out who our host families would be, and where in the Hamilton area we would be staying. Annu and I are staying with a very sweet woman in her fifties who is an RPN at a chronic care hospital. Sharon's husband passed away in April of this year, and thought it would be nice to have our company around.
The three of us went out to breakfast on Saturday morning to 'Egg and I' and talked about many things, including relationships and teen pregnancies. It turns out Annu's parents are from an arranged marriage, and she expects to have one as well, and has no problems with this since she assumes her parents will choose very well for her, and 'love marriages' often don't work out anyway - EEK! Sharon said that she did not allow her daughers, even in their late twenties, to sleep in the same bed with their partners under her roof. However, no one seemed surprised or concerned that I live with Brendan, so that's good.
Last night (Saturday night) there was a celebration of the 60th year of India's independance, which all 18 CWY/SPYM participants and the two project supervisors went to. Eleven of us wanted to go to a bar together after, as we had not been able to hang out since the orientation camp.
There were seven Canadian participants and four Indian participants who made the trek downtown, but it turns out all the Indian particpants have for ID is a photocopy of their passports. We managed to sneak into a bar and have a couple pints before they checked the ID, and kindly told us to leave after our next beer was done, which was cool.
Today Annu and I are going to do a bit of laundry (finally!) and take a bus downtown for an adventure.