I arrived in Tanzania on Monday and by lunch on Wednesday, I was in Swahili Sexual Education. For my dissertation research, I’m evaluating the effect of a community-based distributor family planning program in a rural northern district called Meatu. Three dynamic facilitators from the Ministry of Health are leading this two-week training session for community distributors (all women) from eight different villages. It’s only been a couple of days, but this training is an awesome way to jump right into my research.
I’m completely immersed in the language and it basically feels like I never left this town, so my Swahili is coming back and expanding with health vocabulary and sexual jokes. Sadly, I still don’t get the sexual jokes, but I pretend to. This usually makes everyone laugh even more.
The training is extremely comprehensive. In addition to photos and explanation about each method, there are demonstrations as well. The women (who will shortly become distributors of family planning education) can hold a dose of Depo Provera in their hand and see what the injection needle looks like. I’m learning more about the methods and mechanics of family planning than I ever did in school (and I didn’t even go to a Catholic school).
In addition to the humor and practical knowledge, this training actually seems to be serving as much of a role in empowering these young women as educating them. I never entirely sold this family planning program as empowerment, it’s a lofty concept and very difficult to teach. However, one of the trainers is incredible and I would be selling her short to say that she is not empowering. She led a participatory conversation about women taking control of their bodies, in terms of child-bearing and sexuality. By the end of it, the distributors were chanting, “Tunaweza! Tunaweza!” (we can!). I got chills.
I’m completely immersed in the language and it basically feels like I never left this town, so my Swahili is coming back and expanding with health vocabulary and sexual jokes. Sadly, I still don’t get the sexual jokes, but I pretend to. This usually makes everyone laugh even more.
The training is extremely comprehensive. In addition to photos and explanation about each method, there are demonstrations as well. The women (who will shortly become distributors of family planning education) can hold a dose of Depo Provera in their hand and see what the injection needle looks like. I’m learning more about the methods and mechanics of family planning than I ever did in school (and I didn’t even go to a Catholic school).
In addition to the humor and practical knowledge, this training actually seems to be serving as much of a role in empowering these young women as educating them. I never entirely sold this family planning program as empowerment, it’s a lofty concept and very difficult to teach. However, one of the trainers is incredible and I would be selling her short to say that she is not empowering. She led a participatory conversation about women taking control of their bodies, in terms of child-bearing and sexuality. By the end of it, the distributors were chanting, “Tunaweza! Tunaweza!” (we can!). I got chills.
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