Officer SWAP Update:

Hi there GAD followers, it is now almost fall here in Paraguay and that means there are many changes to be seen around Peace Corps Paraguay. School has started again, PCVs are back to hard at work and the GAD committee is changing up its leadership. Since his is my last email to you all, I will take this opportunity to say what a great year we had and to encourage you all in your work with gad and generally as PCV, it was an honor to work with you this last year.

Check out all the changes….

GAD at a Glance:

NEW 2009-2010 GAD Officers:
President: Melissa Salamon (0971) 295-420
Secretary: Chris Diaz (0971) 160-651
Treasure: pooja Virani (0981) 488-800 or (0971) 901-399
*Please feel free to contact them at any time if you have questions, suggestions or ideas!

NEXT MEETING: Friday, May 30th at 3:00pm; Upstairs Conference Room-PCO

GAD-in-our-SITES: REPEAT Gender Swap or “Sí fuera Hombre/Mujer” activity from Como Planer mi Vida, the stereotypes section.

PATF: Seeking new committee members…. Due to COS, the committee is currently looking for people interested in being more involved with out scholarship and technical program. Because of the quantity of extra meetings and the short notice for dates and time changes, it is advisable that members have better access to and from sites. Contact Chris Diaz if you are interested.

GAD Camp: This year’s youth leadership camp was huge success! We will be re-forming the sub-committee for next year starting soon. For now all that is left is the evaluations and summaries for SPA.

SHIRTS: We are still selling two fabulous T-shirt, come on by the Coordinator’s Office and get one before they sell out!

See you around the office,

Gariety "Gabi"
OUTGOING GAD Secretary


This meeting minutes ¤ January 30, 2009

Intros & Icebreaker: We got right to work with a full agenda, a quick intro around the table was all we had time for, but we welcome new comers just the same.

Gad-Camp Evaluations:
Ø Slide show: we watched the fabulous promotional slide show, made by David Schmitz. It features some 99 photos taken throughout the camp. It was made to help us solicit donations next year as well as thank donors and to share the experience with more people. THANKS DAVID-your hard work really paid off!
Ø Youth Evaluations (written and participatory):
o Food was lowest score(growing boys need more to eat)…more donations are needed in the future
o Identidad Personal and the Panel de Discriminacion were the favorite s plus the rotations in teams (Trabajo en Equipo) evening activity.
o Tired at times…very full schedule (hard to avoid with limited time) and the boys requested shower curtains
o Smiley face were pretty much the same across the board
Ø PCV Evaluations:
o Local was great and involvement of Paraguayans was better
o MC’s, 2 youth participants from last year who were invited as peer facilitators, were a huge plus (couldn’t have done it without them)
o Notable increase in free time was appreciated, but still not enough (unpack)-still need to smooth out schedule bumps
§ Streamline the chores for PCVs and youth participants
o Rural vs. Urban mix was good, as well as gender ratios were about right

PATF:
Ø Briefly we generally explained the program for the new members
Ø 1st Taller went well: the next taller will be held sometime in September or October....wait for further notice.
Ø Discussion of type of scholarships offered: suggested by member we revise the number and ratio of colegio vs. university vs. vocational – member was concerned that vocational and colegio programs can probably be funded by working a bit or in other ways, and may not actually be worth the time; the need is in university scholarships because with out them the applicant most likely can not study.
Ø In response and out of general need, we decided to try to compile information on all the different scholarships offered to try to compensate for the limit of our scholarships and have it available to all volunteers.
o Chris Diaz volunteered to take charge of this project.

GAD Manuel:
Ø Generally we are frustrated about the slow progress of the manual…the committee, as of the meeting, had only received a small percentage of the chapters they needed. Therefore we went back around and REDISTRIBUTED the chapters amongst those present. The new DEADLINE for your chapters is April 30th, 2009. PLEASE JUST DO IT AND GET IT TURNED IN. If you can’t remember ask Marin.
o send entries to gadparaguay@gmail.com

Boy's Manual:
Ø Rosana was not present so we skipped ahead due to long meeting schedule and lack of information….if you have questions contact Rosana or Lauren

Kuat/GADGabber:
Ø The minutes will be submitted to the Kuat, as always, but feel free to submit any other articles related to gender issues you want to, all are welcome.
Ø The next GADGabber will be headed up and edited by Melissa Salamon (THANKS) and will hopefully include articles about PATF, camp and other fun stuff written by all of you: please send submissions to the GAD email as well (see above)
Gad-in-our-SITES:

Ø Activity REPEAT: Gender Swap or “Sí fuera Hombre/Mujer” activity from Como Planer mi Vida, the stereotypes section.

Sec&Tres Reports:
Ø Secretary:
o Kuat submission, checking the email regularly and keeping the blog up to date. Updating email list and trying to pair up email addresses with names of past members….please revise your info if it has changed or if help if you can identify the others on the list.
Ø Treasurer:
o There is currently 461,500.000gs in the GAD fund, and t-shirts are finally making a profit!
o Camp photos still need to be bought and paid for: Gariety will make the donor list and get it to Nathan and David will print them (with a receipt)

Jopara Sub-Committee:
Ø Postponed until next meeting: Nathan is still collecting Data from the incoming and current G’s

Elections:
Ø Description of Positions—given by outgoing officers
Ø Nominations
o President: Melissa
o Secretary: Chris, Pooja
o Treasurer: Pooja, David, Jose Luis

NEW 2009-2010 GAD Officers:
President: Melissa Salamon (0971) 295-420
Secretary: Chris Diaz (0971) 160-651
Treasure: pooja Virani (0981) 488-800 or (0971) 901-399