The Gender and Sexuality Workshop

Part of the work that we do at CFO is planning workshops around important issues for youth like human rights, nonviolent communication, self-esteem, leadership, sexuality, etc. Some of these topics interest the youth we work with more than others. Nonviolent communication, for example, seems to be a pretty hard concept for a lot of them to grasp, understandably so as these communities have a very violent history which has shaped the way people live and interact. Sexuality, however, seems to be one of the most popular themes and once the kids get past the initial embarrassment, they REALLY want to talk about it. Which is good, because not many other people are really talking about it with them. According to the kids that I have talked to, public health workers come into the schools about once a year and give a quick overview of basic sexual health. At home, it is often not talked about. But this lack of atention to something that is so much on the minds of teenagers is a big problem in a country where 1/3 of babies are born to teenage mothers and the number of new HIV cases is rising every year.

In talking about sexuality there are a lot of myths and taboos to break down, and not surprisingly, a lot of them relate to women. For that reason, gender workshops for men and for women have become very needed. In one community where we work, Community Raul Rivas Vasquez, all of last year was dedicated to learning about sexuality. This year, in trying to continue some with the theme, we have started a girls group to meet seperately from the guys and to have a space to talk about gender, among other things, in a space that is safe. About a month ago, we did a half day workshop on gender and then went on a field trip in the afternoon to Los Planes de Renderos, a famous scenic lookout about the city. We took twenty-girls as well as three kids who are children of the partipants, two little sisters who were being babysat and couldn't be left alone, a woman from the community who helped us organize the group, her grandson. It was quite an adventure.

The workshop agenda was to briefly touch on sexuality basics and then look at the gender roles in Salvadoran society. It was really interesting to listen to what they thought and ways they all thought alike and the things the disagreed on. The girls have a ton of energy which made the activites fun, though sometimes a little hard to get under control. Overall though, it went really well. Here are some of my observations about the day
1) Almost all of the girls felt that they were trapped in their homes to run the house while their parents worked while their brothers were free to roam the streets and live as they pleased
2) The situation for women in El Salvador, though still very poor, has changed a good deal in the past few decades, so for these girls some of the gender rules do not feel as strong as it does for older Salvadoran women
3) Though all from the same community, a few girls have higher levels of education (they have been able to attend high school or the university, something that is not very common for young people in their community). The ones with higher level of education were more critical of objectification of women.
4) Most of the girls (including the three mothers in the group) did not see men as reliable when it comes to helping support a family

I feel as if I am constantly learning more and more about Salvadoran society through what I see everyday. This workshop was fascinating for me and I really hope that the girls took something from it as well. The field trip to Los Planes was a lot of fun, despite some slight rain and the fact that we had to cram ourselves into a pickup to get there. We took a ton of pictures and you can check them out on my facebook account. Just click on the link below. The second half of the pictures are of a mural that we did in the same community a few days later.

Click to see pictures!!!

Hope you enjoy!

pic of some of the girls from the lookout at El Puerto del Diablo (the Devil's Door), the lookout point in Los Planes de Renderos