GAD PC PY meeting minutes ¤ Nov 24, 2007

Anuncios
The next GAD camp meeting will be on Monday, December 10, 11:30am at 4D. If you are interested in getting in on the final planning for February, bring your ganas to planear and stay for the gelato.

The GAD general meeting will be on Friday, Jan 25th, 5 PM at the PCO - a must-attend for all those participating in the GAD Camp (February 8-10).

We sold out of the first batch of GAD calendars with photos of Paraguay by RPCV Emily Horton. Pick up yours for 35 mil at the PCO Coordinator’s office.

Yup, that’s right - all eyes are now on Ko’erogua Mita Pyahu, aka GAD Youth Leadership Camp facilitated by Paraguayan NGO PreAlpa. The oh-so-guapo committee has reserved the oh-so-lindo camp site of Tati Yupi near Hernandarias, near CDE. We are all set on the SPA grant, and got Michael E’s approval for the site and travel to CDE!

There are only 2 more volunteer slots available as of today, November 30! Here’s how to get involved in the camp:

1. Seek out 1-3 youth in your community who are active, potential leaders, preferably under age 20 (officially between ages 15-25). Email the names of the youth you’re planning to bring to Lorien AND Evangeline – bneirol@yahoo.com AND evan77sk@yahoo.com Please include Name, Cedula #, Age, Sex, and whether or not you feel this person could lead an activity, charla, or dinamica. Please note, we have space for some volunteers to bring 3 youth. So if you have 3 candidates identified, please send info for all. Be sure to mention if you are interested in giving a charla and/or facilitating with a Paraguayan youth participant or adult contact (include names and affiliations in email).

2. If you don't already have the official invite, camp committee will provide the document that contains all important details at next camp and general meetings. Each youth needs to pay or raise 50 mil (or more but no less) toward their pasaje to the CDE bus terminal (PCVs pay their own way). From CDE, there will be 2 pre-arranged buses to take participants and volunteers to the camp site. Rosana emailed out a muni pedido form to the GAD list to help youth request pasaje funding from their muni.

3. The committee is also going to send out a food pedido form so we can get some donations toward our camp grub. We need help from all GAD volunteers to conseguir food donations and identify what items and quantity of items you might be able to bring (Desayuno, Media-manana, Merienda). More specific info will be communicated to everyone after December 10th.

4. Bring complete charlas & dinamicas/ice breakers to share with the group at the camp meeting December 10 and come to the general meeting January 25 to get in on the ultima hora noticias!

If you have questions or concerns before the camp, please feel free to call or email either Lorien 0971-901-886 or Evangeline 0971-901-881.

Also fully T-ray charged is the PATF young women’s scholarship program – the deadline for the 2008 academic year has now passed. Any youth you helped apply will be contacted by phone if they’ve been selected by December 21! If chosen, they will be required to attend the ceremony to receive the first half of their scholarship money on February 8, 2008.

Speaking of plata, we’ve raised $6125 dollars as of November 30, that’s from our initial goal of $10,000. Kudos to you all and super-kudos to the PATF committee. 1 bit of feedback from a non-GAD PCV was a request to pass out a 1-page print-out to all PCV mailboxes with essential facts on PATF and how to donate.

If 2 project-guasus weren’t enough, we are making the group’s presence known with the GAD Gabber Newsletter – Send in your interviews and articles on gender issues in Paraguay by December 14 to Evangeline at evan77sk@yahoo.com.

Felices fiestas to GAD, and to GAD a good sandia (or melon, or mango, or clericol…)!
– Jen Cheng, GAD secretary

GAD PC PY meeting minutes ¤ Sept. 28, 2007

Break out the yerba and t-ray equipo, because it's time to catch up on another edition of the GAD meeting minutes.

Despedida

GAD took a hit when our calidad-er than calidad coordinator Julie Silvernail left Peace Corps last week due to a family emergency. Julie, you rocked. And we won't drop the ball on you!

Avisos

- The PATF scholarship funding campaign is underway! Get all of your friends, family, former coworkers and other Stateside contacts to make their tax-deductible donations via secure online transactions on the official Peace Corps website link below:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=526-178&region=latinamerica

We need to raise $10,000 by December 1 in order to get the scholarship girls their funding in time for back to school!

- Now available – the GAD Paraguay 2008 calendar with gorgeous photos by RPCV Emily Horton (her works were featured in the 40th anniversary exhibit at the CCPA). Save up your 32 mil now and pick one up at the PCO or at Thanksgiving. Buy a whole bunch and solucionar your holiday gift giving en seguida.

- In lieu of a traditional GAD meeting, we're going to have a GAD powwow over lunch at the PC Thanksgiving event at Hotel Tirol in Capitan Miranda near Encarnación, Saturday November 24.

And now for the feature presentation…Joan kicked off the meeting with some buenas noticias!

GAD raffle – With powerhouse prizes such as Rosana and Orlando, we raised a cool 120.00 Gs at the Duck Soup Seedbank benefit concert.

Calendar fundraiser– Gariety took the reins on layout and got the job done. Joan and Jen have gotten the first 25 printed. If we sell them all, we'll get more made for Thanksgiving!

The GAD Gabber – props to Evangeline, Lauren and Joan for publishing the inaugural edition of the GAD PY committee newsletter, complete with leadership camp news, PATF beca update and other juicy tidbits – make for your mailboxes and let us know what you think! Email all GAD Gabber feedback to gadparaguay@gmail.com. Your feedback will help us decide how often we'll be sending out the newsletter – current thoughts range from bi-monthly to quarterly publication.

GAD in the Kuat – Nov 10 is the deadline and the topic is Paraguayan perspectives – which makes our ongoing gender issues interview project a match made on match.com. Here's what to do:
1) Download your copy of the interview guide from Sharepoint, search your email for the electronic copy sent out to the mailing list or look for it in the December Kuat. Or feel free to do it your way and come up with your own questions.
2) Interview your contacts, best Paraguayan friends, whoever you feel may have some share-worthy perspectives.
3) Once you've done your interviews, send the cream of the crop on over to gadparaguay@gmail.com. One of the officers will review it and submit on your behalf to the Kuat.

Youth Leadership Camp – The guapo GAD camp committee has secured us a site for the February 2008 campamento! The place is called Tati Yupi near Ciudad del Este. What's more, the committee has wrapped up SPA grant número uno, with a budget accommodating 36 Paraguayan youth participants and 18 volunteers. One difference from last year is that the youth participants most likely will have to fundraiser a portion of their travel costs to Tati Yupi, the issue being to asegurar that they have taken their own initiative to participate at the camp. We discussed the possibility of using GAD funds to pay for 1 or 2 participants who would have difficulty raising the money for whatever reason via an essay contest.

PATF Young Women's Scholarship – 2008 applications are now available at the PCO! Pick one or two up if you have a deserving candidate (good grades + community service) from your site in mind. FYI – applicants will need to make an extra 2 copies of the recommendation page. Now let's get $10,000 (yes, that's USD) raised by December 1! We discussed the possibility of more effective messaging for the fundraising campaign and settled on follow-up emails with suggestions to add a personal message and alternative content formatting.

In other beca news, on October 5, the 2007 recipients attended the 2nd workshop on topics including leadership, budgeting and career plans. Kudos to the beca committee – Lorien, Evangeline, Lara, Sarah Fouts and Julie for the guapaite-ness.

New Projects
GAD manual – The idea is to compile GAD resources for our posterior PCVs – charlas, dinámicas and tangible strategies to deal with gender and development issues in site. Here's the brave new committee – Carole, Allison Whaley, Mila, Seth and Joan. Resources include PCO GAD manuals, Kuña Aty org (3rd year PCV Liz), leadership camp charla presenters (various) and Decidamos NGO (Seth). The plan is to get preliminary resources organized by December 15 before many take off for the holidays. So far, yet so soon…… and so-long!

GAD is guap@, ¿verdad? Thanks for reading! – Jen Cheng, GAD secretary

GAD interview resource guide

Hello good people of GAD!

Back in July, we talked about putting together a guide for volunteers who are interested in opening up the dialogue with Paraguayans in site to get their personal views on gender issues. Thanks to a collaboration between the language folks and Lisa at CHP, Josefina,Julie, Joan and I – we've come up with this resource that you can print out and take to site to liven up those mate/t-ray sessions! Feel free to adapt the interview guide to your needs. If you come out with share-worthy interview experiences, please send them to Julie, our calidad coordinator at jsilvernail@py.peacecorps.gov who will juntar them for Kuat submissions and/or snippets for the new GAD newsletter. This is definitely a live document that we can update with your feedback. So happy interviewing and we'll check back every now and then on how this project'i goes!

Go GAD!

-Jen Cheng, la secretaria

Conversaciones sobre Género y Desarrollo – ¡Vamos a hablar de cómo vivimos y trabajamos juntos las Mujeres y los Hombres en nuestra comunidad!

Nombre del entrevistado/a (opcional):
Edad:
Tipo de sitio (campo, pueblo, ciudad):
Tamaño de familia inmediata (número de miembros):
Ocupación:

Para leer al entrevistado/a:
Hay un Comité de Voluntarias y Voluntarios del Cuerpo de Paz que quiere conocer qué piensan y cómo trabajan las mujeres y los varones paraguayos y paraguayas en nuestras comunidades. También tenemos una revista que se llama Kuatia ñe’e, y nos sirve para trabajar mejor durante nuestro servicio, y allí queremos publicar estas conversaciones con ustedes.
¡Gracias por compartir con nosotros!

El Comité de Género y Desarrollo de Cuerpo de Paz
Agosto 2007

Nota 1: No es necesario completar todas las preguntas. Los voluntarios y los contactos entrevistados pueden elegir las que más tienen que ver con sus intereses y realidades y también inventar nuevas preguntas.

Nota 2: En algunos casos, sería útil explicar los conceptos como igualdad, porque los significados de las palabras para los voluntarios podrían ser diferentes para los contactos paraguayos.

Las Preguntas (La Porandukuéra):
[significado de las letras después de los números: c = en castellano, g = en guarani, j = en jopara]

1c) ¿Por qué estás contento o contenta por ser hombre/ mujer?
1g) Mba’erepa nde revy’a kuña/kuimba’e haguere.

2c) ¿Qué te hace sentir mal porque sos mujer/hombre?
2g) Mbae’pa ndemboñenanduvaiva ndeve kuña/kuimba’e haguere.

3c) ¿Si volvieras a nacer, elegirías ser varón o mujer? ¿Por qué?
3g) Ikatu’ramo remoambue nde rekove, mba’ete’pa remoambue’ne: kuña te’a kuimba’e haguere ha mba’e’repa.
3j) Enacejeyramo mba’eramopa reikose kuña te’a kuimba’e? Mba’erepa?

4c) ¿Qué cosas que vós creés que podría hacer un hombre /una mujer pero que todavía nuestra comunidad piensa que estaría mal?
4g) Oîpa nde barrio te’a ne comunida’pe mba’e reha’ârôva ojapo kuña te’a kuimba’e ikatuŷva guerteri ojapo ndojehechaporâi rupi.
4j) Oîpa nde barrio o comunidadpe kuimba’e/kuña ndaikatuiva ojapo ndohechaporâi rupi upémba’e la gente térâke ndoaceptai?

5c) ¿Cómo querés que sea mejor la vida para las mujeres/hombres/jóvenes del Paraguay?
5g) Mba’epa reha’ârô kuña ha kuimba’e (mitâguera) paraguayo ku’ra peĝuarâ.
5j) Mba’epa esoña kuña/kuimba’e (mitâguera) paraguayguape?

6c) ¿Qué cosas tienen más valor para vós entre las que cambiaron en el Paraguay, para que los hombres y las mujeres sean tratados como seres humanos/personas iguales? (ejemplos incluyen los cambios a la constitución, la reforma educativa, acceso a las noticias, y más)
6g) Mba’epa la remomba’eguasuve’va umi mba’e oikova’ekue apyte’pe kuña ha kuimba’e oiko haĝua tekojoja’pe.
6j) Ndeopinionpeĝuarâ, mba’epa rehecharamoveva te’a evaloraveva cambio oikova oîrire tekojoja (igualdad) kuimba’e ha kuña ndive?

7c) ¿Por qué pensás vós que no se llegó todavía a tratar igual a las mujeres y los hombres? ¿Cuál es el obstáculo? ¿Por qué cuesta tanto?
7g) Mba’e’repa ndéverôĝuarâ kuña ha kuimba’e ndoiko’igueteri tekojoja’pe ha mba’ete’pa ojejapova’erâ oiko haĝua petekojoja.
7j) Ndeopinionpeĝuarâ, mba’epa la desafio tuichaveva contra la tekojoja (igualdad) kuimba’e ha kuña orekova hoy en día? (traducción indirecta)

8c) ¿Cuál creés que puede ser tu función en este sentido en la sociedad paraguaya? ¿Qué creés que podés hacer vós al respecto?
8j) Mba’eichapa recalificane nde rol/función nde sociedadpe?

9) ¿Pensás que hay alguna necesidad de cambiar tu función/responsabilidad en esta sociedad?
9j) Iñimportantepa oñecambia la kuimba’e rol kuña apytepe ñande sociedadpe?

10) ¿De qué formas/cómo podemos mejorar las relaciones entre los hombres y las mujeres?
10j) Mba’eichapa ikatukuaane ñemoporâve la relación la kuimba’e ha kuña apytepe?

11) ¿ Pensás que existen limitaciones para las mujeres o para los varones? Si te parece que si, contáme algunos casos.
11j) Oîpa algún opresión nde mismo sexo rehe? Econtestami si te’a no. Mba’e’repa?

12c) ¿Querés dar un mensaje para compartir con mis compañeros voluntarios y voluntarias que van a leer estas entrevistas?
12g) Mba’etekombo’e’pa rereko rembohasaséva voluntariokue’ra omoñe’ētavape ko’â neñe’ē.
12j) Erekopa mensaje ecompartiseva voluntariokuérandive oleétavahina con nde ñe’e, che ahaíva?

GAD PC PY meeting minutes ¤ August 4, 2007

The week after a successful roundtable session, the diehard GADdies got together, got riled up and established the following current group focus-

1) GAD Newsletter - we want to make this a priority to give some publicity to the great projects GAD has going! We are looking to put GAD project recaps and your personal gender and development experiences into the inaugural issue. Let´s hear it for the newsletter committee - Evangeline, Rosana and Lauren. Please send Evangeline your content submissions at evan77sk@yahoo.com by September 7th!

Upcoming meetings and events-

GAD leadership camp subcommittee- Sunday, Aug 19 at 11AM at the PCO before the 40th anniversary cokout

Come one, come all to the next general meeting on Friday, September 28 at 4PM (NEW TIME, moved from 2PM) in the PCO conference room.

September 28 is also the date of the second beca taller for 2006-7 recipients, to be held all day a partir de 8 AM at the Gobernación Central in Aregua. Contact Julie for details.

Now for the meeting - First up, our priceless Pres Joan shared info from the PC Ecuador GAD website (http://www.projectsforpeace.org/gad/index.htm )

- A PC PY GAD website is a potential goal (is anyone into Web design?), but for now we have the PC PY GAD blog to catch up on all the GAD gab.

- Jen Cheng will be emailing out interview guides to this mailing list so that PCVs who want to understand more about the PYan perspective firsthand can use our questions (translated into Spanish and Guaraní thanks to help from our staff adviser Josefina and the lovely folks at CHP). Any great responses you get would be a welcome GAD newsletter or Kuat GAD section submission! - which brings me to the next point-

- Newsletter vs. Kuat - why do we want a newsletter when we already have our own section in the Kuat?

Here´s the breakdown-

Newsletter - geared toward all-Peace Corps and international audience, well-rounded source on all things GAD

Kuat - geared toward PCV and PCO staff audience, better for lengthier submissions

- Beca update by Julie

If you know a 2006-7 recipient of our young women’s scholarship from Dept Central, please let Julie know if the girl would be interested in being interviewed.

Evangeline and Julie are preparing to send out this year´s funding proposal for 50 scholarships (10 more than last year!) to Washington via the Partnership program. Look out for the brochures to take to your sites and how to help fundraising info around the end of Sept.

FYI the second taller for current beca girls will be all day on Sept 28 (same day as GAD meeting) at the Gobernación Central in Aregua. Contact Julie or Evangeline if you are interested in participating, especially if you have a winner from your site.

Pirapire update
It´s been hard to get the swear-in/peace out goods pirapire activity going because of timing restrictions. So this fundraiser is not canned, but on hold - G19ers, start saving us your stuff!

We are thinking of putting together a calendar or planner in time for Christmas - Ceci, with her infinite wisdom of experience, recommends we get this going by September/October - Joan and Jen will get on our treasurer Orlando´s case on this one. Another idea is a co-ed PCV/GAD pageant or auction at Thanksgiving (taking notes, O?).

GAD Roundtable recap - turned out to be a stellar event, with a turnout of 36 volunteers and 10 staff members. Kudos to Julie for her calidad coordinating efforts. Roundtable results - let´s do some interviews with PYan contacts, figure out how we can balance out representation of men and women as charla and other event presenters, let´s focus on men´s needs, self-esteem and use traditional PCV activities like teaching English classes as a segway to working on gender issues.

Due to the event´s success, we´ll be looking into reconvening about twice a year.

Last but not least, Lauren has agreed to be GAD email reminder gal, pulling newsworthy bits from the minutes and keeping GAD members in the know!

Can´t get enough of GAD? Read up on more in the GAD section of another gab-worthy edition of this latest Kuat.

-Jen C, secretarY

GAD PC PY meeting minutes ¤ June 29, 2007

To get involved with the following activities…
-the beca (young Paraguayan women’s scholarship) committee – next meeting July 7th
-helping organize the GAD roundtable for July 27th 2-4 PM
-donating items to the first GAD pirapire activity by August 20th
…contact our great GAD coordinator Julie Silvernail at the PCO for details
You can also go to Orlando Velez (o-mazing GAD treasurer) for any pirapire-related questions

Prep for next meeting:
Interested in creating and joining the GAD charla team (official name TBD)? Bring resources, topic ideas, and ideas for a better name than ‘charla team’ to next meeting to be held Saturday, August 4 at 2 PM at the PCO

This meeting: Joan Dudney’s taken the reins from Jen Tucker as GAD president. Got to give a shout-out to all the guapísimo G-18ers who helped take GAD up an echelon. Ha upei G-23ers!

Beca
- Julie gave an overview of the beca (young Paraguayan women’s scholarship) program’s history, which has evolved over the years from a domestic violence issue focus to funding a full year of women’s continuing education as a broader means to promoting empowerment
- GAD´s general role in the beca program is to communicate program info to the PC and volunteer communities
- The beca sub-committee is also looking for potentially 1 more member (ideally someone in Departamento Central who can come in regularly for meetings) –> contact Julie if interested!

Pirapire
- Orlando proposed organizing a pirapire activity through which COS-ing volunteers and other generous PCVs will donate goods to GAD and other volunteers can vie for donated goodies via pirapire activity ticket purchase
- Interested donors can give their goods to Julie at the PCO; Julie will prep a list to itemize donations and keep items in the PCO’s long-term storage
- GAD G-18ers will help get word out to the rest of their G to donate items by August 20th
- If successful, we can repeat the pirapire activity every COS/Swear-in cycle
- Orlando and Julie are point persons for any pirapire activity questions

Kuat
- We have a designated GAD section in the Kuat that we want to fill with articles every time there’s a Kuat deadline
- Next Kuat deadline is July 7 - we will be submitting selected GAD Feb 07 camp charlas and Sarah Fouts has so kindly agreed to write a recap of last year’s group activity highlights
- Any GAD member is welcome to submit gender and development related articles to the GAD section –> please forward future articles to Julie for compilation

Coordinators
- GAD NVAC co-reps: Alyson Platzer and Lorien
- Next GAD camp coordinators: Evangeline Kim and Lorien
- GAD camp committee: Sarah, Lauren, Rosana, Gabe and Alyson (and I believe more people who were here last meeting)
- Beca committee: Julie, Evangeline, Lara and Lorien
- GAD online newsletter: Julie and Evangeline
- Welcome letters (to newly sworn-in PCVs) and advertising: Lorien
*If you weren’t at the meeting but wanted to get involved with one of the committees or roles, please contact Joan or designated coordinators directly

Roundtable
- The GAD roundtable event is set for July 27, 2-4 PM
- The goal of the roundtable is to get PCVs and staff together to generate ideas and action steps on how to make gender and development more tangible and practical in PC work as well as improve training
- Props to Katie Cook for her prep work!

Brainstorm
- Joan led a lluvia de ideas on what continuing GAD members are interested in doing this year:

Issues of interest - How to start addressing issues
1. Improve gender and development training - via GAD roundtable July 27
2. Pool domestic violence resources - Try to get info from G-18er Emilia before she leaves - Liz, PCV who’s extended to work with Kuña Aty (national women’s org), will be a great resource - she’s offered to go out to PCV sites to give charlas on domestic violence (Liz’s cell: 0971-701-260)
3. Promote male role models/mentors - via GAD camp
4. Create GAD charla team - Planning to be continued next meeting
5. Use theater groups to dynamically communicate GAD themes - Research with PCVs who have contacts with Paraguayan theater groups such as Orlando and G-21er Jim Smitwick
6. Interview Paraguayans on gender issues for Kuat - Jen Cheng will write up an interview questions resource guide
7. Launch GAD online newsletter - Designated coordinators – Julie, Evangeline
8. Focus more on capacitating adults - Can be integrated into charla team activities

GAD camp hand-off
- GAD camp guru Sargeant Donovan-Smith passed over folder with participant and organizer evaluations to Julie to be used as resource for next GAD camp committee
- Lorien has been looking into partner orgs – Fundación PY is a possibility – so next camp research is now underway…