WHAT I DID IN SURINAME

In November 06 I started a five month volunteer stint with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI). The organization's mandate is to develop north/south NGO partnerships that bring us closer to a world where human rights are respected, poverty is eliminated and the impact of HIV/AIDS is reduced.

I traveled to Suriname, South America on a youth internship to give radio skills training to HIV/AIDS youth organizations who wanted to start their own radio shows. To learn more about the organizations, click on the Blog - Work Wise links on the right side of this page.

I set out to complete the following:

• help Stichting Mamio Namen's youth wing implement a radio program that raises HIV/AIDS awareness
• hold media workshops with other local youth groups and create a document, which could be used to train future youth

I didn't accomplish everything I wanted, and I accomplished a whole lot I had never intended:

• a radio program format for Mamio Namen's youth and a local station time slot though no shows had aired by the time I left
• a highly successful three day media training seminar with fellow CCIer Tricia Schers, bringing six youth groups together to learn the best ways they could get their organizations' messages into the media
• I helped edit the taped version of the seminars while Tricia created a guide, translated to Dutch, for future youth
  

• After spending many months frustrated at youth groups' isolationist, competitive tendencies, I saw them draw together, near my placement's end, to hold a press conference responding to a politician's comment on their distribution of condoms
• The new youth partnerships addressed CCI's capacity building and sustainable development targets, tying in my radio programming goals. Youth network and share skills, strengthening their fight against HIV/AIDS and other related issues

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Claudia A - a cramped and crowded alternative to the cramped and crowded orphanages in Paramaribo. About 25 children and 7 HIV + women live there. Although Claudia A's mandate is to serve HIV + and HIV affected children, Norma, the director, takes in anyone. She would shrug, how do you turn away kids?

After Christmas I began volunteering once a week; refuge from my sometimes frustrating placement. I folded laundry, picked up toys and lost shoes and fell madly in love with the children.

Claudia A, relying solely on donations, can't afford to hire many helpers and largely relies on a rotating door of Dutch interns and local volunteers. I met an autistic girl who lived in "her own world" and a 21-year-old with Cerebral Palsy. He and a friend sat me down one day and asked very solemnly if I loved Jesus.

The latest additions when I left, were two brothers and a sister. Their stepfather left them at Claudia A when their mother died, keeping only his biological son, their half-brother.

The girl, 5, was upset when I brought her a pair of shoes all the children share. "Those aren't mine," she said.

I wonder about the future of these children nearly every day. Still, there are small victories.

My mom and sister visited me in January. They brought toothbrushes and toothpaste for the children. My mom pledged to renew the supplies every six months.

A month later a three-year-old girl was taken to hospital, very sick. She recovered and when Norma brought her back home, she told me the doctor was blown away by her shiny clean teeth!