Monday, April 29, 2013

We're back!

Joe and Beth at the Toronto Airport
Time has passed so quickly this year, and somehow we're here already! Joe and I flew into Guyana this morning from Toronto on a redeye flight and got into Georgetown mid-morning. It was straight down to business for us, trying to activate our old phones and get in touch with some of our community partners who are such a vital part of QHO. They are as happy to have us back as we are to be here, and we couldn't be more excited!

We're enjoying the amazing Guyanese food once more. We had boulanger choka for lunch, and it was infinitely better than the stuff we tried to make back in Canada. Seems like we just don't have the special Guyanese touch.

Its almost surreal how much we feel at home in the first few hours of being back. The streets, the fresh food, the warm air, the welcoming Rima Guesthouse... We can't wait to introduce the peer educators to everything and get started in the classroom.



More updates to come,

Beth




Friday, April 12, 2013

Project is just two weeks away!

Hello again everyone,

I can't believe that just a year ago Beth, myself and the other four peer educators were preparing to embark on our project with Queen's Health Outreach to Guyana. After our amazing two months in Georgetown and Berbice, we returned to Canada and started preparing for this year's project. In October, we hired a new group of six wonderful peer educators and set out to prepare for the upcoming year. After seven months of planning and carrying out fundraisers, practice teaching, watching presentations about various topics related to Guyanese culture and spending a whole lot of time getting to know our team, it is finally just a few weeks until we are all in Guyana!

Just like last year, we will be working in two main areas in Guyana this summer. Beth and I (the two project directors) will be accompanying four peer educators (PEs) to Georgetown, (Adam, Haily, Janet and Allie) and two PEs will be returning to the Berbice region where we started a pilot project last year (Kevin and Kate). We will be using this blog throughout the two month period to report on all of the progress in Guyana and keep people up to date on what is happening on project. We are very excited to continue our partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport as they have been essential in our success over the last couple of years. There are a lot of exciting prospects for this year and we can't wait to hit the ground running with a schedule chalked full of teaching and working with Guyanese youth.

The next couple of weeks will be very busy with finishing up all of our final pre-departure preparations but the next time you hear from us, we will be in Guyana!

QHO Guyana on our annual QHO retreat
Cheers until then,

-Joe