Naturally my type A personality and my creative side have been freaking out about this secondary project since Day 1. I've been stressing about how I can leave my mark in my village. Should I work on an environmental project? Should I teach the village how to recycle? Should I work on nutrition? Should I create a homeless shelter? How will it be sustainable? Do they even need this? Do they care?
The entire time I've been at site, I've been looking around for opportunities to make my community better. However, I was looking inward. I kept asking myself questions about my secondary project. I was just so lost. I even tried creating an Environment Club at my school. I was hoping that I could encourage my students to become passionate about cleaning up the local beaches and recycling. I printed a ton of resources and announced to the school that any interested students should meet me for Environment Club after school. I eagerly waited for students to pile into the classroom, but soon I found myself standing in the classroom alone. Students peeked their heads in to say hello and then sped home on their motorcycles. I was so disappointed. I had no idea how to energize the students on this subject matter. I officially gave up on creating the Environment Club. I went home and told myself, "Kruti, your secondary project will happen. Just wait."
About 5 weeks after the failure of the Environment Club, Peace Corps Indonesia emailed each volunteer inviting volunteers to apply for to a 3 days workshop. The workshop would educate volunteers and their Indonesian counterpart on how to implement a secondary projects. The workshop promised to teach us how to write grants/proposals, how to make our project sustainable, and how to plan our budget. I read this email while sitting in the teachers' lounge at my school. I was so excited for this workshop until it dawned on me that I don't even have a secondary project to work on.
I immediately turned around in my chair and asked my counterpart, Ibu Mujiati (Bunda), if there was anything that she thought the village or school needed. She said, "Yes. I think we need HIV/AIDs education." I told her about the workshop and she became incredibly excited. She went ON AND ON about creating an educational camp for students and spreading the knowledge of HIV/AIDs prevention techniques throughout Panggul. She got so excited that she took me straight to the local clinic to talk to doctors and nurses about HIV/AIDs prevention.
I followed her around the clinic and wondered, "What the.....? Where did HIV/AIDs come from!?" I had no idea that it was even an issue in my village. I know a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa do a lot of HIV/AIDs prevention work, but I don't think any volunteer in Indonesia has done any work on it. I seriously thought it wasn't even a big deal in Indonesia. However, I did some research and I found out that United National Programme on HIV/AIDs (UNAIDS) declared HIV/AIDs to be an epidemic in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia has the fastest growing rate of HIV/AIDs cases in all of Southeast Asia. Bunda was so excited to hear that I was interested in helping her educate locals on the dangers of this virus.
I was dumbfounded for about 3 days. This ENTIRE time I was searching through my village looking for opportunities to make a difference. However, I didn't do the most simple type of research: asking around. I didn't bother to ask any local what they thought the village needed. I was in my own head working out what I thought they needed. No wonder the Environment Club failed. It was only important to me, the random American outsider.
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| Bunda and I presenting our project proposal to Peace Corps staff/volunteers/counterparts |
Bunda and I applied for the Peace Corps workshop and got in. We just finished the 3 days training session and received wonderful reviews on our project idea. This post is mostly about how the idea of my secondary project fell into my lap, so I will write about the project itself at a later date.
The message I think every Peace Corps Volunteer should know is this: If you want to make a difference, ask.
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