The
role of women in communities: a UK and Bolivian comparative.
With
our partnership with Childfund, we are working with centres across La Paz which
children attend after school. These
centres play an important function in society, as without them children often
finish school in the morning, and stay at home or work in the afternoons; the
centres provide a space for children to receive academic support, leadership
training and other educational opportunities which are typically not found in
the Bolivian educational curriculum.
We
are currently hosting a photo exhibition with girls who attend the Niñas San
Gabriel centre based on the theme of the role of women in their community.
Displaying the photos in a local art gallery, we are selling the photos to
raise funds to buy cameras for the centre.
Using technology as a tool for development gives young people agency to
express themselves and creates a space for voices and ideas. On a wider scale, increasing
the use of technology creates a medium which crosses cultural, social and
economic boundaries in order to broaden audiences, increase awareness, and give
youth voices a platform to be heard.
In
addition to photographs taken by the girls in their communities, we also spent
a day in the Ñinas San Gabriel centre making a video where we shared our
experiences of women in our communities.
The girls expressed their views on various issues: what role women play
in their communities; what obstacles women are facing, and what they would
change in their community. Myself and
Megan, another UK volunteer, also spoke about our communities in the UK, and
the role of women. It was interesting to
see how women in different communities face different challenges, not just
between Bolivia and the UK, but also within different areas of the UK.
Aside
from the work in various centres, our team are working on this week's Guided
Learning, where we present and discuss a different topic each week with all UK
and Bolivian volunteers. Our topic is on
the role of youth in development, and it has been interesting to see where our
projects, and our roles as UK volunteers, fit into the theory and applicability
of youth in development in both a local and wider scale. Learning about the unprecedented numbers of
young people in the world and the exponential potential we have to impact our
societies has acted as a driver for us to contribute fully to our projects
here, and to continue contributing when we return home.
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