final farewell

Greetings Earthlings,

We cannot believe this day has actually arrived.... The final blog post! Even though it was the beginning of the end, our last week was arguably our busiest. We spent the last week wrapping up with teaching, proctoring exams and lots of time painting and hanging out with the kids at Ruimveldt.

On Monday morning us girls headed over to the centre to get the majority of the mural painted before we got the kids to add their glorious finger painting! We added a big tree in the centre of the wall, and  lots of wild grass all along the bottom. We painted in clouds and a big blue sky to round out the image, and one of our favourite parts was the Dr. Suess quote that we included. It reads: "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." The kids love reading with/to us, so we thought it would be perfect for them!

On Tuesday we all taught our final lesson at RBI, and got showered with beautiful goodbye notes from our students. It was sad to say so many goodbyes at once, but so rewarding to know how appreciated we were! In the afternoon  we made it back to Ruimveldt to mix up some more paint and get messy with the kids! Paint and paintbrushes were flying, and in the end lots of laughs were had, with a colourful array of hand painted birds, flowers, fruit and critters left behind now dotting the wall. We all met met up at the radio station to discuss peer pressure on air for our final radio show segment. We answered lots of callers questions, and had so much fun chatting with the host Frederick once again.

We spent the better part of Wednesday marking our form 3 exams (our largest class by far) and completing some final administrative QHO paperwork. The boys taught their last lesson at the Red Cross, and then we spent the evening on the sea wall watching the sunset and saying goodbye to the Ocean.

On Thursday morning we had our final segment on television with Reyaz, we spent the entire time on camera taking calls and answering his questions about ourselves, Canada and QHO.  It was our last time seeing Reyaz, so yet another sad goodbye was had afterwards. We rushed from the TV station to Chase academy, where we proctored our final exam for forms 1, 2 & 4. With the exam completed, we were left to power mark all three sets of exams so at we could submit them to the teachers at Chase the next day.

On Friday we had intended to be busy with running around and lots of goodbyes, but the rain struck again overnight and well into the morning, creating extremely flooded streets. We were able to drop off all the exams at Chase, however school was cancelled so we couldn't say a final goodbye to many of the kids. We managed to run a few last minute errands and made sure to eat our final lunch at our fav restaurants Steppers, loading up on Blackeyed Stew, Choka, Bora, and fresh passion fruit juice. The Berbice team arrived in Georgetown and we were able to spend some time together before some of them came to Ruimveldt to meet and hang out with the kids with us on our final day. In was a weird feeling showing up to the centre knowing it was our final day, but we made the most of our last afternoon. We played some "kick it", took lots of pictures and some of the older girls plaited our hair.

We can't even put into words how " once in a lifetime" this experience has truly been. We are so happy to have been able to spend the last 7 weeks together- getting to know each other, getting to experience Guyana, it's incredible people, and it's diverse culture. We have forever fallen in love with the new friends, food, and music that we have been introduced to. We won't soon forget the unmatched hospitality that we have been shown, as we have felt so at home in a country that was so foreign to us at first. While we came here to impart our knowledge on others, the amount of growth and learning we experienced as young adults has been incredibly eye opening and rewarding. I don't think we could have asked for an experience that was more positive or fulfilling as we sit here reflecting in the airport.


They are just beginning to board our flight which will soon be enroute to Toronto, so here it goes one final goodbye from your 2015 G-Town crew!!!!

Big love and thanks to all of you who followed our journey, see you in a few hours CANADA!!!

Wooohoooo we out!

Anna, Maddy Ali & Jesse

Goodbye from Berbice 2015

What a wild week it has been to cap off the Berbice 2015 initiative! The Berbice crew said their final goodbyes to the Letter Kenny community yesterday morning before heading to Georgetown to prepare for their flights out of Guyana. Throughout the past week the Berbice PE's bid farewell to students, teachers, and all the wonderful people they have had the opportunity to meet and develop relationships with.

As the Berbice PE's finished up teaching in schools, they were busy establishing a new tradition of preparing school-specific reports detailing the work done in each school this year. Through compiling lessons outlines for all their classes and a letter to the Headmasters, the PE's hope to develop institutional memory for the schools and QHO. Hopefully these reports assist in creating a seamless start to the 2016 initiative and add to the sustainability of QHO in Berbice.

Wednesday marked the final day of teaching for Jamie and Ben, while Erin and Vinyas finished in classrooms Thursday afternoon. Although our time in many classrooms was closing on Wednesday, Jamie and Vinyas had the opportunity to teach at Mibikuri Primary School in Blackbush for the first time! They were able to teach a morning session on Peer Pressure and Substance Abuse to a wonderful class of enthusiastic grade 6's!

Time spent in every classroom has been such a pleasure. The PE's were fortunate enough to be welcomed by many students and teachers with open arms, and to be able to be a part of such vibrant schools. We will miss all the students so much; they brought such enthusiasm, energy, and of course interesting questions into the classrooms.

When done teaching for the year, the PE's organized a goodbye celebration for the youth in the Letter Kenny community. Although there is no way to repay the kindness the PE's have been shown by the community, they hoped to attempt to show their gratitude through providing an opportunity for the children to relax and have fun playing games and socializing. For party snacks, Jamie whipped up some googala, a dish learned in Guyana that is small fried balls of banana bread. One of the community members with whom the PE's had the chance to grow quite close had taught them to make this dish (among others), so it was only fitting to try it out to show their gratitude.

Erin, Jamie, Vinyas, and Ben all taught classes at Lower Corentyne Secondary School, and on Thursday the Headmaster arranged a thank-you celebration from the teachers to all of them. They were imparted with words of kindness and gratitude, and even got to hear a song dedicated to their time at the school, sung by the Headmaster himself! In addition, Erin and Ben returned to Number 59 Primary on Thursday for an additional thank you from the teachers and students, and got to spend some additional time with the students. All four of the PE's are grateful for the kind thanks received from many students and teachers across the schools in which they taught.

The PE's would like to take this opportunity to extend their own heartfelt gratitude to all who have helped them with this initiative. Without the donations of time and money from friends, family members, and other community members, the PEs would never have been able to run the QHO Berbice program. They hope that following this blog has helped those people share in the experience and recognize the role they have played in reaching out to so many students.

They have already heard from many students, teachers, and Headmasters that QHO's unique teaching style and relevant teaching subjects will be welcomed gladly into schools again next year. In addition, some teachers and Headmasters are taking it upon themselves to implement some of the QHO curriculum into their regular curriculum. This is wonderful for the PE's to see, as it reinforces the goal of QHO as a sustainable organization that works to develop school communities to implement additional health curriculum where needed and relevant.

Let the Good a Times Roll

Hello Everyone!

It's us again! Wowow we can't believe we've just entered our last week here in Guyana, we're having a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that this week is full of lasts.

On Tuesday, we did our first radio segment. It went so well and we had a great time interacting with callers and discussing healthy relationships and abuse. We were such a big hit that the host Frederick invited us to come in again on Thursday night and sit in on one of his programs. Stay tuned again this Tuesday night so you can hear us on the radio show!

On Wednesday, we went to Ruimveldt to finish painting the playground. we were happy to make such a colourful addition to the play yard. We also began cleaning and preparing one of the walls of the building to paint a mural. We plan to create an outdoor scene with trees and flowers, as well as writing a fun but inspirational quote. The kids are going to help us with the painting this coming week so it can be an activity we do together. We are looking forward to doing some good old fashioned finger painting!

On Thursday, we did our last lesson taught on TV as this week we will be interacting with live callers in our final segment. We had a heavy lesson as we discussed depression and suicide, but received positive feedback that we had dealt with the sensitive subject in relatable way.

That night we visited the Shaheed Girls Islamic Orphanage. All of the older girls at the Orphanage are our students at the Reyaz Business Institute- it was a really wonderful opportunity we had to spend the evening getting to know some of them over dinner in a much more relaxed environment. They are such a vivacious group of young ladies who welcomed us with open arms and much generosity. A special shout out to their house mother Shanty who treated us like family!

We had an emotional week teaching fall of our final classes at Chase Academy, but it wasn't a goodbye yet, as we will be proctoring exams for them this week and have a year end picnic planned for Friday. This past Friday we anticipated going to spend an afternoon participating in gym class with the Chase kids, but instead they caught us off guard with a surprise "thank you" ceremony... It was very touching, and there may have even been a few tears shed! Some of the students had speeches prepared, while others serenaded us in song.

We revisited the Anna Catherina Islamic Complex to give an "Intro to Health" talk to the youth group, as we hope to establish a regular teaching schedule with them next year. The kids and even some of their parents who sat in, were very keen to hear what we had to say, and showed much curiosity! We stayed and had dinner with the President of the complex, Hakeem Khan, chatting about ideas for next year- we're very excited to see what the future brings for this new partnership.

This past weekend was spent finalizing our last few lessons for this week and working on editing our mental health awareness commercial! We're ready to soak up every last bit of this final week... We've still got five awesome days left here in Georgetown, and for that, we couldn't be happier!!

Sending lots of love from 9 degrees north of the equator!

Anna, Maddy, Jesse & Ali

This is (Almost) the End

Wow! Our sixth week has come and gone in a flash. Our final week has come all too quickly and we were not expecting just how many goodbyes we would have to say during week six.

Ben teaching the side effects of drugs and alcohol.

Our goodbyes began in the classroom throughout the week. Many students are in exams during our final week here so week six marked our final lessons with a lot of classes. While our time in many schools was short, we still grew very fond of our students and are sad to see our time with them come to an end. It has been a pleasure to teach youth who are incredibly enthusiastic learners.

Erin and Vinyas after their final lesson with their Form 1 and 2's at Berbice Islamic School.

Ben and Erin with the Form 3 class from Lower Corentyne Secondary and their Science teacher Miss Sharon. 

We also made it into another school in the Blackbush region. This time Ben and Jamie went to Joanna Primary school to teach the kids over their lunch hour. It was a very successful lesson about hygiene and self-esteem. Usually students take at least one lesson to warm up to QHO Peer Educators, but these kids were firing on all cylinders right away. Their participation was excellent and all the students were excited at the prospect of learning new information. We are excited for the 2016 Berbice PE's to continue working in this region with all the wonderful people in the Blackbush community.

We made the most of our final weekend in Berbice, taking advantage of some new opportunities and continuing a few more common occurrences. Saturday was an exciting day with our final trip to the market. It will be a big adjustment getting used to buying our food from big grocery stores again. We have become so used to the abundance of fresh food that is sold to you directly by the people growing it. Since it was our last time at Port Mourant market we got a little ambitious and decided to try buying meat. We went to a stand where the lady diced up a freshly plucked chicken to our liking! It was super cool to have a look at the process between farm to table. That same chicken would later on make a delicious meal of chicken curry and roti (which the girls have gotten very good at making). We also said goodbye to the lady who's vegetable stand we visit each time we go to the market. She sent us on our way with a bunch of new vegetables to try as well as some of her own secret recipes. After learning these new things at the market, it was time to return to Letter Kenny for some of our own teaching.

The Letter Kenny kids came out in full force on Saturday afternoon for lessons on reproductive anatomy, pregnancy, and contraceptives. We were impressed by how many were excited to learn on a Saturday and with all the questions they asked. What a smart bunch. Sunday was also an exciting day. We accepted an invitation from a teacher at Lower Corentyne to accompany her and her family to #63 Beach. This beach is known all around the Berbice region and we were pumped to go check it out. We spent a few hours of our final Berbice weekend enjoying the beautiful Guyana beach and wonderful company of our hosts. We had also agreed to teach the Letter Kenny kids once again in the afternoon, so Erin and Jamie delivered an engaging lesson on HIV/AIDS to an attentive group of youth. We certainly made the most of our final weekend here!

A very small portion of the vast Port Mourant marketplace. 

The beautiful view at #63 beach.

Erin and Jamie doing what they do best: learning and having fun!

Our final week in Guyana will be a busy, bittersweet mess. We have lots of reports to finish for Head Teachers and meetings to set things rolling for Berbice 2016. While we are happy to soon return home to our friends and families, it will be tough to say goodbye to new friends. We don't want our time here to end, but ast the same time we are looking forward to the challenges and incredible opportunities our final week will present!

Ben, Erin, Jamie and Vinyas

Running through G-town with my QHOs

Goooood Afternooon!!

Coming to you live from Georgetown, it’s QHO! This week went pretty much according to our routine, with a few exciting and eye opening things thrown into the mix. At the beginning of the week we were finishing up teaching lessons on healthy relationships, peer pressure and abuse at Chase Academy, AEA, Reyaz Business Institute and the Red Cross, with our lessons later in the week focusing on depression, suicide and coping at the Sophia Training Centre, AEA and Chase Academy.

Our Thursday morning lessons on The National Television Network are generating recognition farther and wider then we realized. The Berbice team was recognized by the QHO logo on their t-shirts the other day by their cab driver, who had seen our most recent lesson on “How to talk to your kids about Peer Pressure and Substance Abuse.” Reyaz connected us with his colleague who runs the radio at the National Television Network in Guyana. We are extremely excited to be featured on his show
“Reality Check” for our final two weeks here. We will be holding live discussion based questions as well as taking in calls from listeners and answering peoples questions. Make sure to tune in on Tuesday at 8pm Eastern Time, we are really excited to have made this new connection, which will only further our reach in Guyana

***see link to tune in live: http://tunein.com/radio/NTN-RADIO-891-FM-s214151/

It has been a special week with the Ruimveldt Children’s Aid Centre. On Wednesday, the boys began the process of painting the playground in their yard which added some colour and brightness to their equipment. There will be more painting to be continued this week and we are hoping to add a mural to the side of the building as well in the next couple of weeks. We will be sure to keep updates coming! After our regular Friday evening, playing with the children and feeding them dinner, we went for a walk through the community behind the center where majority of the kids live. This was an experience that is hard to put into words, but exposed us to a side of humanity that is both eye-opening and shocking, demonstrating the resilience that these incredible kids have.

It was great having the Berbice team in Georgetown  for the weekend again- we had a quiet Friday evening as we all had such busy weeks, so it was great being able to catch up with each other. On Saturday, we felt super privileged that that Reyaz had invited us all to the Anna Catherina Islamic Complex for a dinner and awards ceremony. The new government was honouring the complex for their achievements in the community- and Guyana at large- with the Golden Arrow Award, the highest National Award of its kind. Due to the nature of the event, both the Honourable Prime Minister Mr. Moses Nagomootoo and His Excellency President David Granger were present, and we were fortunate enough to exchange greetings with both of them. Don’t worry, we will follow up with pictures to prove it!!

Just this afternoon we were shown great hospitality by our good friend from the market, Sunil! Sunil is our go to guy 4 times a week, when we stock up on all of our fresh fruits and vegetables. We have just returned from spending the better part of our day with him and his lovely family, who cooked for us a wide variety of the most mouth-watering dishes!  Curried channa (chickpeas), stewed spicy pumpkin, stir fired garlic chokka (okra), dhal and rice, baggony (eggplant and onion fritters), roti straight off the griddle, and homemade passion fruit juice… Are you hungry yet?! They are an incredibly generous family who have taught us a lot about Guyana, both in the market and in their home, and have truly made us feel like family.

Hard to believe we have only two more weeks ahead of us in this wonderful country, hope June has been good to everyone so far!

Ciao for now,

Anna, Maddy, Jesse & Ali

Week Five and Still Alive

Hello once again everybody! It is your favourite Berbice Peer Educators writing to you from Rima's Guest House in Georgetown.



What a week it has been and things are starting to move much quicker. There are only two weeks left for us in Guyana, which is a sad realization. However, we are continuing to learn every day and every day presents new opportunities for us to grow the Berbice initiative.

A beautiful morning from our balcony in Letter Kenny.

Erin with the female students at #59 Primary after a successful lesson. 

On Monday, Jamie and Ben were in Comprehensive Corentyne for their regular lesson. They have been fluctuating between two Form 3 classes there, changing which one they teach each week. However, for the past two weeks, they have spent the entire lunch hour with the kids answering all the questions they have about health, science, and life as a teenager. It is incredible how eager they are to learn. By Wednesday, things really started to pick up with five lessons being taught between all of us. We have nicknamed our midweek day as Whirlwind Wednesday for the busy excitment that comes with it. Erin and Ben headed to Skeldon for lessons on puberty with Grade 6's at Massiah and #59 Primary as well as a lesson on healthy relationships and abuse at Tagore Secondary. The students are getting very comfortable with us teaching and are including us in lunch/snack plans as well as inviting us to play games with them after school. Jamie and Vinyas were at Lower Corentyne and Rose Hall Primary for lessons on puberty. These topics were covered on request from the students who were all eager and enthusiastic to  know more about developmental changes.

Jamie and Vinyas teaching Grade 6's at Rose Hall Primary about puberty.

Ben and Erin showing their enthusiasm for teaching. 

Let's talk about sex! A lesson on puberty and sexual anatomy with Ben and Erin. 

On Thursday we were once again busy teaching with lessons at Berbice Islamic School, Central Corentyne Secondary, Lesbeholden Primary and J.C. Chandisingh. Most of these were regular lessons with the exception of Lesbeholden Primary. Located in Blackbush, this is QHO's first time teaching at Lesbeholden. It was awesome to get into a new school and while the students were timid, they were extremely attentive and asked lots of great questions.
Later that evening, we had a campfire with the youth in the surrounding area. We have developed incredible relationships with the Letter Kenny kids over the five weeks we have been here. There have been lots of learning and fun happening at the Letter Kenny Youth Space after school hours. On Thursday we took the time to build a bonfire (which had the added bonus of keeping away mosquitoes) and bring the kids a little taste of Canadian culture in the form of S'mores! Everybody had a great time and it was great to see how creative the kids got in putting Guyanese twists on their s'mores.

Ben and Jamie with their Grade 5 and 6's from Lesbeholden Primary class after an engaging lesson on Peer Pressure. In the back right of the picture is Kenneth Pearson who has been instrumental in helping us with talking to schools int he Blackbush area. 

Our weekend was spent in Georgetown with the entire crew. We were invited to a ceremony at the Anna Catharina Islamic Complex by the main Georgetown contact Reyaz. The complex was receiving the Golden Arrow award, which is a national recognized award. Reyaz is very involved in the complex and the QHO team was therefore able to attend the incredible ceremony to experience some Islamic culture and witness them receiving their award. Since the award is a national award the newly elected President and Prime Minister of Guyana were in attendance! The entire QHO team were actually able to meet and exchange words with His Excellency Mr. President David Granger and the Honourable Prime Minister Mr. Moses Nagomootoo. This was an incredible experience that we won't soon forget. The entire QHO team is hoping to work more closely with the new government to increase the sustainability and effectiveness of our initiatives. Picture evidence will be forthcoming!

The beautiful Anna Catharina Islamic Complex

That's all for now. Soon we are heading back to Berbice for another exciting week of instruction. Stay well everyone!



The Berbice Crew,

Ben, Erin, Jamie, and Vinyas

Week Four in Berbice

Hi everyone! Today marks the first day of our fifth week in Guyana. Having an established teaching schedule has made the weeks pass with seemingly increasing speed. We already have only three weeks remaining!

Monday marked the end of our lessons at Vryman's Erven Training Centre. Throughout our lessons here, we did extensive work on mental health covering topics such as peer pressure, healthy relationships, abuse, self esteem, depression, and suicide. It was sad to say our first goodbye, however the students left the clear impression that they enjoyed having us in their classroom and now feel more comfortable both speaking about their own mental health and acting as resources in their communities. QHO looks forward to continuing to collaborate with the training center for lessons next year!

Ben and Jamie in Blackbush meeting with faculty members at Joanna Primary school to discuss implementing QHO programs at that school for the first time. 

On Thursday, Jamie and Ben visited Blackbush, Berbice to meet a new contact and introduce QHO to schools in the area. Through collaboration with some wonderful local contacts we were able to get in touch with four primary schools, a secondary school, and a youth space in the Blackbush region. Our teaching at the schools will be limited this year, but we look forward to building upon these relationships for future QHO initiatives. We look forward to teaching sporadic lessons at the schools over the next few weeks and a weekend seminar at the youth spaces. We are all ecstatic over the new opportunities arising in Berbice, which is increasing the number of youth we are able to reach!

After a week of teaching, we ended the week by accepting an invitation to the Guyana Independence Day celebration at Lower Corentyne Secondary. In the morning, we taught lessons on self-esteem and leadership and then ended the day by attending an assembly full of singing, dancing, and Guyanese pride and then participating in games with the students. Chatting over cola, cricket, and a cook-up cookout made for quite the Carribean experience and an enjoyable end to the week!

A big pot of cookup being made at Lower Corentyne for their Independence Day celebrations. 

Erin teaching self esteem and leadership in front of an attentive Lower Corentyne Form 3 class. 

Stay tuned for a future post regarding a day in the life of a member of the Berbice team! Thanks to everyone for your continued support and for taking the time to read our blog.

We've just passed the half way point!

This week started out like any other- we had a busy Monday and had to reschedule all of our classes that were the following day, because Tuesday was a national holiday, it was Independence Day and the new president was introduced at the presidential inauguration. The entire city shut down for this holiday, so we spent the morning watching the flag raising ceremony on television, and then headed to the national stadium for the afternoons events of cultural performances and the inauguration itself!
People had travelled from all corners of Guyana, camping out overnight to ensure a seat in the stadium. We were lucky to be able to find a spot way up in the back and witness this colourful celebration!

Wednesday we picked back up with lessons and teaching. We taught our first lesson to the Red Cross table tennis team. We also managed to spectate some of these athletes in a tournament this past week. It was really cool to see them in action! The rest of the week flew by with classes at Chase Academy, Sophia Training Centre, and of course another segment on TV. At Ruimveldt this week, we worked with the kids on some reading comprehension and still had lots of time for fun and games.

This week, in addition to our classes and regular activities, we are preparing for the training day that QHO is hosting on Saturday. We are super excited for the Berbice team to come again his upcoming weekend, so we can train this group of individuals on how to teach about different aspects of health to their communities, when QHO is not present.

At our guest house, our hosts are affiliated with a semi-pro basketball team here in Georgetown, and they invited us to watch a basketball game at the park across the street from where we live. It was really cool spending the evening watching them play under the lights! Waking up to the sound of torrential rain, on Sunday was totally normal, but when we stuck our heads out the window to find the streets flooded with at least a foot of water (more in some places), we were shocked! We weren't going anywhere fast! Just like we have snow days in Canada, it seems they have rain days in Georgetown.

Hope you are all staying dry in Canada!
The G-Town Team
Anna, Maddy, Ali, and Jesse