We’ve been doing some advocacy training out here in Togo for young people, so its been good to try and be all ‘youth workerey’ in a totally different context (and language!) The first was in Lomé and was suitably youth workery as we stuck flip charts on trees, did moving evaluations and led the sessions outside amongst the cluster of sandy trees outside the Y office. All informal and safe.
Well, today we travelled up to Attakpamé, (check out his random youtube clip of the town) a small town in the centre of Togo to do another session with a group of young people there. Despite having insisted before hand we could do outside and we didn’t need desks or anything formal like that, the Y had hired a classroom for us to work in! Now I am totally addicted to flip-charts when i do session…it is my comfort and lifeline, so you can imagine I was horrified to be told there was none…just a blackboard!! To make matters worse, as i entered the young people were sitting neatly in rows on individual desks as formal as it is formally possible to be!!
Still, it was actually a great day and as I got progressively covered in chalk dust I found myself going back to the year I spent as a teacher in Zimbabwe. The school we were in was so similar – the smells, the sounds and dusty ground. As were the eager faces of young people so happy in their formal classroom and studious in their learning. I have my own opinions now on gap year kids going to ‘teach’ in developing countries, so because of this maybe I don’t appreciate actually what an amazing impact it had me, not only as a person, but in terms of my understanding of what I do now, and how much it has underpinned my life decisions since.
So thank you the people of Zongoro and the Daneford Trust for making it all possible so many years ago. It was because of you that today I found myself sweating in the heat of a hilly Togolese town, covered in chalk, speaking rusty French to a group of young people about campaigning and making do without my flipchart.
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