Today is my third day of work. Or, volunteering, if you want to be technical about it. I am situated in the Flanker Peace and Justice Center and am now getting to know the staff fairly well. My placement is focusing on assessing the youth program at this center, and at three others in the region to identify opportunities for them to work together and build on the strengths already existing at these organizations.
Like many community centers, the pace ranges from frenetic to totally dead. On Monday, when I started, it was the first day of school and the center was buzzing with parents and children seeking help with school uniforms and information to send their kids to school, and from students and adults wanting to register for the homework club and other supplementary classes for children and adults. I still don't have internet at home, so I'm taking advantage of some down time this morning to post to the blog. Later on today I hope to observe the seniors program, another activity that takes place here at the center.
The Flanker Peace and Justice Center was originally started by a group of community members. The Flanker community has a population of about 10,000 people, and is a part of the Montego Bay township, but is geographically distinct. The center founders were community members who came together originally to start a community watch to deal with crime and violence in the community. They were trained as community mediators via a CIDA grant, but ultimately they decided that offering the mediation services and training wasn't sufficient to meet the needs of the residents, so today the center offers a wide range of support services, many focused on helping people get through school so they have better job opportunities.
On another note, I have settled into my place reasonably well. On Monday night I was terrorized by a large cockroach that walked in to my living room. It was probably 2 inches long. I consider myself a reasonable person, but this bug totally freaked me out. After a few minutes of the bug and I chasing each other around the room as I attempted to get close enough to kill it without actually being close to the creepy thing, I gave up. My truce was that it could have the living room and I would have the bedroom. I bought some Raid equivalent yesterday and fumigated, so here's hoping I have my place to myself again!
Pictures in the next post...
