Week 4: So much more!

Hello loyal blog readers,

This week we continued our health discussions in the classrooms focusing mainly on substances and substance abuse. Many students found these discussions very interesting and educational.

On Tuesday, we had the pleasure of meeting Marcia Smith, who is the acting principal of a special education learning centre, called Gifted Hands. This was the start of a new partnership, which will include going to the centre once a week to provide additional one on one learning for the students. All  of us are very excited about this new collaboration and are looking forward to spending more time with the students!

We have taken on an additional partnership with the Red Cross after school Youth Program- where we will be facilitating health discussions with students.

This week we also were able to add another 2 classrooms to our schedule with a new school called the School of the Nation. We are excited to be reaching more students in Georgetown!

As usual, we appeared on NTN (National Television Network) on Thursday morning. We discussed substances and substance abuse in our segment.

We wrapped up the halfway point in our teaching on Wednesday! With only 3 weeks left of teaching, we are trying to focus on the most pertinent topics for each classroom.

On Thursday night, the ladies who work at our accommodation prepared us a lovely vegetarian meal which was very kind of them! It was nice to have an authentic taste of Guyanese food.

There were positive vibes around the city as the carnival celebrations continued this week. Independence Day was on Saturday, so we decided to see the parade. The parade showcased many different costumes and music.

Until next time,

Britney, Tara, Hannah and Gwen

Week 3!

We cannot believe that it is already Week 3 in Guyana! The Berbice gang is finally starting to get in the swing of things, and teaching is coming much more naturally! After finishing all of our introductory lessons, we are diving into many more topics, and the students continue to engage more and more. A few of us did the reproductive anatomy lesson this week, and there were many laughs and red faces, especially among the younger grades, but it has to be taught at some point!

            The questions we have been getting in our question boxes are usually pretty interesting, but when we get the odd funny comment or question about how cold Canada is, it always puts a smile on our faces! We encourage every student to write us a question at the end of every lesson, because we know it can be intimidating to ask in front of all of their peers.

            Along with teaching, lesson planning has also become much easier to do. The six of us usually bounce ideas off of each other every evening, and find ways to adjust and tweak each lesson to suit each of our individual classes. The students seem to enjoy activity-based lessons the most, so we have been eagerly thinking of new ways to incorporate fun activities into our lessons!

            Our life outside of the classroom hasn't changed much, but we continue to grow closer with our friends at the Letter Kenny Youth Space. One of our friends was kind enough to invite us for dinner on Monday night, and we were all so thrilled when they served our favourite – pumpkin curry and roti! The community we have been welcomed into is beyond anything we could have ever hoped for. Everyone we have met has been so kind to us, and always make us feel right at home. Even the man who owns the bar below us, Ravi, came upstairs while he was working to show us how to make roti! It was lots of fun and definitely requires a skill that we haven’t quite figured out yet. The verdict from Ravi was “needs improvement”, but a good try for our first time!

            This past weekend was especially fun because we went to Georgetown to visit the other half of the Guyana group! Sharing our stories and unique experiences in the classroom was so much fun, and we stayed up for hours catching up. After our best breakfast since arriving in Guyana on Saturday morning, we ventured to Kaieteur Falls for an outstanding day trip. We boarded a 15-seater plane and took a 1-hour flight directly over the Amazon Rainforest. We walked to three different lookout points, each getting closer and closer to the falls. The view was nothing short of breathtaking, and was something none of us had ever seen anything quite like.

We are so blessed to be in such a lush, welcoming and beautiful country, where we can spends off exploring one of the wonders of the world, our nights with friends, and our school days with eager and engaged students. 

            At the rate we’re going, Week 3 is going to be tough to beat!

            Until next week,

            The Berbice Family

Week 3: Yippee!

Hello friends, family, acquaintances and strangers,

This week was jam-packed and fun-filled as we completed our second full week of teaching! It has been really great to have thought-provoking discussions and getting to know the students even more. There is an exciting energy about the city as the carnival started on Friday and is to continue over the next 2 weeks! Hannah and Gwen began facilitating discussions about suicide and depression at St. Rose's as they have limited class time to spend with them. In the other schools, we focussed on bullying and substances which really interested the students.

We were also invited to the Health Expo which will take place on June 1 in downtown Georgetown. This will provide us with an opportunity to spend time with the students outside of the classroom and investigate other health resources in Georgetown that we can incorporate into our lessons.

Thursday we appeared on our weekly segment at NTN. We talked about mental health and depression and it went really well! Reyaz (the coordinator of NTN) was very impressed with us and told us that we were the most composed group for our first segment.

On Friday evening, the Peer Educators from Berbice came to visit us. It was nice to exchange classroom stories and find out more about their experiences in rural Berbice.

We were lucky enough to be able to explore Kaiteur Falls on Saturday. All 10 of us boarded a 15-seater plane which took us over the Amazon Rainforest to the interior of the country. The views form the plane were spectacular as we flew through the clouds and over a rainbow! 🌈

We walked through the Amazon Rainforest to several view points and took in the amazing landscape. The guide was super helpful and told us about different species we encountered along the way. We were so amazed by all of the beauty that this country holds!

Looking forward to getting to our half-way point of teaching this week!

Signing off,

Tara, Britney, Gwen and Hannah :)

Week 2!

Week two complete, and wow was it ever different from week one! This was our first week teaching in schools, and all of our hard work and practice lessons in Kingston during the year are starting to pay off! Nick and Ciara had an extra early start to their Monday morning, as they were teaching in three schools about one hour away. Elizabeth, Liz, Delaney and Hailey stayed a little closer to home and all finished at the same spot on Monday afternoon. The classrooms in Guyana are quite different than North America, as most rooms are separated by chalkboards instead of walls, so needless to say we have all found our “teaching voices”!

As a group, we have all come to appreciate our primary and secondary school teachers and all the effort they would put into teaching us, but especially in their introductory lessons. We sometimes found it difficult when the students wouldn’t ask questions right away, or volunteer to participate, but they are likely experiencing the same initial nerves that we are! “Ice-breakers” seem to be a great place to start when getting to know the students, and the whole Berbice team seems to really enjoy the games “two truths and a lie” and “where the west wind blows”. Some of the classes that we teach in twice a week are already starting to warm up to us, and are starting to engage more and more! We are all eager to continue creating bonds with students and creating welcoming and engaging learning environments!

This past Friday evening, we had the pleasure of teaching the young adults at the Guysuco Training College about Mental Health, Mental Illnesses, Suicide, and Sexually Transmitted Infections. The six of us tag-teamed the lesson, and all enjoyed it so much! We were teaching men similar to our age, and although we were only there for a 90 minute lesson, we received a lot of awesome questions, and were able to start some important conversations. We were asked to come back in a couple weeks from now, and we are all eager to return!

As for our lives outside of the classroom, we have created a good routine of coming back from class, going to the Youth Space, making a “family-style” dinner, and then working on our lesson plans for the next day. Our first week consisted primarily of introduction to Mental Health lessons, and after asking each classroom what they would like to focus on, we will soon begin teaching a plethora of different topics in different classes.

On our day off on Saturday, we went to the Letter Kenny beach with our friends from the community. We certainly learned from our previous mistakes and loaded up on the sunscreen before leaving! We learned how to play cricket, the most popular sport in Guyana, and we soon realized that we have quite a way to go with our sporty skills! We topped off our week with a restful Sunday, full of lots of lesson planning, preparation for our upcoming week, and lots of Mother’s Day calls to our wonderful Moms back home!

We are excited to see all the new classroom adventures that week three has to offer!

Until next time,

The Berbice Family

Week 2: Nice and New!

Hello faithful subscribers,

I know you've all been anxiously been awaiting our weekly blog post. We sadly had to say goodbye to our Program Directors, Megan and Shannen, on Tuesday morning. They helped us get situated here in Georgetown and we were sad to see them go.  We hope that we make them proud over the course of our initiative!

This week was as busy and exciting as ever! We taught in all of our classrooms for the first time, in 11 different schools and in 29 total classrooms! We mainly had lessons about physical fitness and mental health and introduced QHO as an organization. We really enjoyed getting to know the students and are excited to continue having health-based discussions over the next 5 weeks!

We met with Mrs. Singh, the Private School Coordinator who was happy to meet with us and discuss opportunities of branching out into new schools this year. We also had the chance to meet with Sacchin- who is a member of Prevention of Teenage Suicide (POTS), which is an organization that aims to address, educate and provide resources to students about suicide. We are happy to be working with them this year, as they offer a good resource to students here.

On Thursday morning, we were lucky enough to be invited to the National Television Network of Guyana to introduce ourselves and QHO as we will be appearing on the show weekly to discuss health topics. Keep a lookout for us!

On Friday afternoon, we participated in and facilitated a discussion on mental health at an after school program with students that are involved in the President's Youth Award. Much fun was had!

On our time off, we had the chance to workout in the beautiful gardens close to our accommodation. We are looking forward to the weeks to come!


Signing off,

Tara, Britney, Gwen, and Hannah 💛

Week one in Berbice!

Week one, and Berbice is having FUN! We arrived in beautiful, sunny Georgetown bright and early on Tuesday morning and got to stay there for the first night. After lots of napping and a bit of exploring on Tuesday, we hit the road to Berbice on Wednesday. Along the way we got to try sugar cane juice, a staple in Guyana, and had a few mixed opinions on the beverage. We quickly settled in to our wonderful apartment, and after a nice meal and a good sleep, we hit the ground running on Thursday. Half of us stayed home and the others approached schools that we have taught in the past. The other half of us took the afternoon shift and all together we had lots of success! We had a similar routine on Friday and were ready to teach in over 30 classrooms starting Monday!

            We are so fortunate to spend time at the Letter Kenny Youth Space every afternoon, and make connections with members of this community.  We have had lots of laughs and have learned lots about the Guyanese culture through these friends of ours.

            As a group, we have also learned about the foods available in Guyana, and how to cook for such a large gang! On Saturday morning, we experienced the busy and exciting market, where we stocked up on fresh vegetables and delicious tropical fruits. Cooking together is quite fun, and we have managed to make a new, tasty dish each night!

            We topped off this week at “63 Beach” on Sunday Afternoon. Definitely different than beaches in Canada, but equally as fun! We got caught in the rain when we got there, but the afternoon ended with blue skies and a wonderful day had by all! All 6 of us are very eager and ready to teach this upcoming week! We look forward to updating this blog throughout the next six weeks with all of our stories and adventures in the classroom!

            Until next time,

            The Berbice Family

Week 1: Very fun!

Hi everyone, this is Britney, Hannah, Gwen, and Tara reporting to you from Georgetown! 😃 We arrived from Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Tuesday morning and were welcomed by our Program Directors, Shannen and Megan's familiar faces. We were lucky enough to have the other Peer Educators who are located in Berbice, stay an extra night with us and we spent our first day exploring the National Park (and meeting the manatees located there), and getting ready for the busy week ahead.

The next day we met with Dr. Allister Collins who works under the Ministry of Education as the Executive Officer of the President's Youth Award. The President's Youth Award (PYA) is a voluntary non-formal educational program that provides young people between the ages of 14-24 years with a balanced program of activities for individual development. The program aims to empower and foster socioeconomic enhancement among Guyanese youth in accordance with the National Youth Policy of Guyana. We are very excited to be working under the PYA this year!


The rest of the week was very busy as we started to develop our weekly teaching schedule for the 7 weeks to come. It was nice to meet students and teachers who were familiar with QHO from previous years and were excited to welcome us back! We had the chance to teach our first lessons in 2 different schools where we focused on introducing ourselves and QHO to the students, and then lead into a lesson on physical fitness. The students were very enthusiastic and we enjoyed the classrooms a lot!

Next week we are looking forward to engaging in discussions in more classrooms and reaching out to more organizations located in Georgetown!

Signing off,

Britney, Hannah, Gwen, and Tara 😃