This was back in 2014, before I even arrived. Lynda Mae (the Peace Corps volunteer), with the support of Keith (the Country Director) worked long and hard to form a committee, try to raise funds, come up with a curriculum, and all the other nitty-gritty things that go into running a workshop like this one.
Flash forward to June 2015, when Carrie Hessler-Radelet came to visit Vanuatu. Being a female IT volunteer, I was lucky enough to sit in on a presentation Lynda Mae gave about the project during Carrie's visit. Carrie was very excited about the prospect, and even said she'd mention it to Michelle Obama when she met with her the next week (Michelle was instrumental in implementing the new Let Girls Learn project focus for the Peace Corps).
The camp was supposed to run just a couple of months later, in August, but due to lack of funds, it was pushed back to December, then to May of this year, AKA two weeks ago. This meant that, unfortunately for Lynda Mae, her service finished without her being able to see the camp actually become reality, but luckily for me, I was able to attend and help out!
Since I'm not on a committee, don't get sick much, and have more amenities than most at my site, I don't come into the capital often. I was CC'd on the planning emails, but was never able to go to any of the meetings. I felt pretty out of the loop. When they told me they were bringing me in to help run the workshop, my first thought was: "why?"
As the time for me to head to the workshop approached, I began realizing more and more that even with the committee that was helping to plan the event, and the organizations that had donated money or materials, this year at least, this camp was mainly run by Peace Corps. Rodney, the IT Officer for the Peace Corps Office, and Laura, Provincial IT Support for MALAMPA Province, had become the main driving forces since Lynda Mae had gone home.
I arrived in Vila not too sure what was going to happen, but ready to help in whatever way I could. This manifested itself over the weekend before the camp started mainly in installing, updating, and organizing the 10 computers the girls would be using during the week, along with the occasional planning session and t-shirt run.
Monday morning came, and we were all nervous and excited. The first girls began arriving at 7:30, a full hour before the camp was supposed to start. (If you read my blog post about time, you'll know how surprising that was to me). I'm not going to go into too much detail about the day to day of the camp, but am instead going to let you watch some videos that Rodney and Antonio (one of the other facilitators) put together about the week.
Day 1: Introductions, ice breakers,
history of gaming, a discussion about career opportunities within the field of ICT, and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Leadership training
Day 2: Basics of Python, using Turtle as a
learning tool, GLOW Leadership training, and a field trip to ICT days
Day 3: Building a game with Game Salad (through Tech Rocket, one of sponsors), and basics of Graphic Design
Day 4: Using HTML and CSS to build websites, and GLOW Leadership training
Unfortunately no video for Day 5 yet, but I'll update this post if one comes out. You can check out our Facebook page if you want to see some photos from the week in general, and specifically the last day!
Day 5: A field trip to the Meteorological Office, Javascript, and the closing ceremony
The camp was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. A group of girls that at the beginning of the week would barely talk to us were dancing with us by the end. Girls who had a hard time dragging and dropping items using the trackpad the first day, were editing Javascript and HTML internet pages by the last day.
Since this first year went so well, we hope that the model for this camp will continue for many years to come. The interest is there, with about 80 girls applying for 10 openings at this year’s camp (even without a large promotional campaign), and many asking if we’ll run it again next school break. The camp could not have run this year without the support of our sponsors, local facilitators, and local businesses, but the day-to-day of the camp was predominantly run by myself, another Peace Corps Volunteer, Laura, and the Peace Corps IT Officer, Rodney, with a lot of our funding came from a Let Girls Learn Peace Corps grant. The goal is that in future years, Peace Corps can step back from the camp and leave it to be run solely by our local partners, and with the success and publicity received by the camp this year, I think that SMART Sistas Girls ICT Camp has the potential to enact some positive change within the Vanuatu community.
More information about SMART Sistas Girls ICT Camp in Vanuatu can be found at our website, or our Facebook page.
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