Success!

As Peace Corps Volunteers, there are a lot of activities and projects we dabble in, but it isn’t necessarily often that we do something that is a resounding success. The first successful project I helped with was made up of activities for Global Hand Washing Day (15 October of every year). The success of this project was due to the teachers’ motivation and excitement about the project, the students’ participation and the municipality’s willingness to help. I helped coordinate activities all week at a primary school and a secondary school. Activities included having a drawing contest/brochure designing contest about hand washing and giving out prizes, having a game show with trivia about hand washing, and having a symbolic school-wide demonstration of hand washing followed by every student and teacher washing his/her hands. The week culminated in a giant parade with over 1200 participants. Participants ranged in age from age three years to 17 years-old. There were over ten schools represented—pre-schools, kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools. The students in some schools got dressed up in traditional Peruvian clothes from different cultures in Peru and danced around with water pitchers and basins for hand washing. Some primary school students made costumes for themselves—some were giant hands and/or diagrams of hand washing, etc. All of the schools participated in a contest to create the best giant poster about hand washing—the only catch was, they could only used recycled materials. The municipality gave a computer to the winning school, and second and third place schools received boom boxes if I remember correctly. This activity was a success because we all worked together as a team—everyone contributed a little to a big event, and everyone—from ages 3 to 65 years old—were excited for the day and participated fully.