Germinator Article

There is a quarterly Ag Sector magazine that is put out by the volunteer coordinator and composed of volunteer content. This was my addition to the latest issue:

Overcoming First Charla Fears

Nathan Forster CE G28 – Potrero Garay

03/07/09

As a newbie of the Ag sector I must admit that until the end of February I suffered daily from an acute case of “charlaphobia”. How on earth I was ever going to get to the point of conducting a Charla, let alone get anyone to come? I’m proud to say that now I have conquered my phobia and to best explain my methods I believe I should provide some person context.

I am a bit of perfectionist, and do not believe that charlas are the best way to teach or present information to a group of people. I do believe, however, that the best way to present information or to teach a group of people is to first understand how that group will learn best, and then doing my best to present the information in that manner.

Keeping this in mind I entered my second week in site, and the beginning of my integration into the community – I basically spent the entire first week with my host family just stuttering jibberish and learning how to efficiently bathe myself with a bucket while never being able to stand up straight – searching for and understanding of how my gente will best receive my information and what incentive they operate on.

At this point it is worth distinguishing that, while to some it may sound like it, I never harbored preconceived ideas for charlas or projects while I was searching for the topic of my first presentations. To be “one of those new volunteers who has a ton of ideas and thinks they’re all gonna work” would be completely against my nature, just ask G28 CE. My mental process is one of identification followed by analysis; picking up on trigger words of interest, on behalf of the community member, while having conversations. I also test the pool of interest by casually casting possible ideas for my involvement. Most of the time, as I am sure fellow PCVs can attest, it seems that interest shown in some area of our program is usually not interest held. To me this is fine. I have no beef. But I do make a point to be sure that the interest is not held by being as persistent as I feel appropriate. Usually within a few minutes, hours, or days, I have either found a CE accomplice, or someone to come back to with a different angle at a different time.

By the end of January two things were clear to me. First, as huerta season approached there was a large interest in technical assistance with huertas and obtaining seeds for the huerta. Second was that many individuals in my community are sending their children to an Ag school in Villarrica, or not sending them because the pasaje is too much. Regardless, pasaje and education seem to be two of the largest obstacles for families.

In my analysis of information I gathered, and through conversations with my women’s committee and community contacts, I decided that I could generate a lot of interest in a huerta charla and piggy back an Ag-Forestry charla specifically about family economic planning. Ok, so I had my themes… easy enough, I thought I could stumble my way through those possessing enough vocabulary to get the basic point across. But how do I get people to attend?

I asked a friend in the community what she would most like to “get out of a charla” about gardens. I think I said it wrong because she instantly said “free seeds”. I had a reaction that made me think of all the stories I hear from past Gs about people always asking for free stuff. But later that day I got to thinking about it. I knew where to get free garden seeds – seedbank, ABC Color, muni – but I’m not going to just give handouts for coming to one meeting, and not only that, my charla preparations had made it very evident that in both topics I would need at least four presentations of two sheets to really feel like I got my information across.

The solution to my quandary became merit based; the gente had to earn their seeds. Not only that, if we made almacigos at the first of four weekly meetings they would be ready to plant by the end of the series. Respectively for Ag-Forestry, I had the resources to accomplish the same goal and could provide those who attend all four meetings with planted macetas and tree starts.

Feeling as though I had set the stage I got to work planning the structure of my charlas. I felt that the more structured and fundamental they were, the better my chances of not screwing it up and the gente leaving more confusion about the topic than when they came. I was fortunate to have a couple of Plan PY meetings in my site before my charlas. I used this opportunity to gauge how the people in the community respond to charlas. The meetings were long, really long, and there were only charlas. In the last hour of both meetings the people in attendance became visibly antsy. They did not necessarily seem disinterested in the information; rather needing some sort of other stimulus that keeps them engaged or better conveys the information. Gaining this valuable insight I decided that at each meeting I would present one charla sheet that was purely informational, me talking to them. Then, the second sheet would display a drawn diagram of a gardening technique, almacigos, tablons, mulching, transplanting. Directly following the second charla sheet we would, together as a group, actually do the technique to better exemplify.

As judgement day approached I was at a complete loss for what to expect. I had done a little bit of outreach but had missed the opportunity to sufficiently advertise my events on the radio and was relying almost completely on word of mouth within the community. That made me nervous. To my greatest surprise, however, over twenty people came to the first garden charla and thirteen to the agro-forestry. Also to my surprise I was actually understood, minus a few vocabulary mix-ups like saying “salt” when I thought I was saying “hole”. Perhaps, an even greater accomplishment (in my own eyes) was that I only lost a totally of eight people from both groups combined between the first and second charlas of each theme.

So if I could give some advice to anyone who may have that uncomfortable feeling of charlaphobia… What helped me most was the knowledge of what I need to feel like I am giving my best attempt to provide the people with information in a manner that I feel they are receptive to. For me this was accomplished by attending other meetings in the community, talking with individuals, and incorporating aspects of training (yes that is a shout-out to CHP). I thrive off of organization, even if it is rushed and it usually is, and having a formulaic approach to prepare myself – not a formulaic approach to working with the community – for the charla really helped me overcome my first charla fears.