secondary projects are those things we do outside of our main roles as peace corps volunteers. our main, official jobs are english teacher (chris) and teacher trainer (me) and the two big projects we both completed in early june revolved around the less defined umbrella of "youth development."
the first weekend in june, topher and many other male pcvs arranged a weekend workshop just for young high school aged males. they named the workshop B.R.E.W. Crew- an acronym that stands for Boys Respecting Empowered Women- and focused on understanding the nuances between males and females, especially in cambodia, and how these young men could use their leadership to both sustain and grow their own impact and health, but also work to grow their understanding and support of women's roles, power and significance in a global, ever changing society.
it was a fantastic weekend. the pcvs who planned the weekend did a great job and i was honored to be asked to support their work and even present alongside chris on the topic of healthy relationships and more specifically, our healthy married relationship.
and finally. there is one moment from the B.R.E.W. weekend that will forever go down in my books as one of my top five favorites from my entire two years living in cambodia.
the final evening, it was arranged that these hard working, smart, funny khmer students would visit the beach, which was a short tuk tuk ride from where the workshop was being held.
and that moment, when the majority of these fourteen through eighteen year olds, jumped into the ocean for the first time in their life, and exclaimed with glee and excitement and overwhelming, unbridled joy...
in that moment, my heart grew three sizes bigger.
How amazing is that!
ReplyDelete