So this past year, my whole job in site has pretty much been working with health promoters- both big and small. While I’ve spent a lot of time and energy forming 23 teen promoters with my PEPFAR project, I inherited a great group of adult health promoters form the previous volunteer. These guys (and gals) are great. While they have become pros at doing radio spots and more recently have been delving into the area of house visits and charlas (only after I have lit the fire under their kekes), I think the real reason they like their job is because we manage to have a lot of fun. This is the key to success. I mean let’s be honest, being a health promoter is great and all and I’m sure they get that nice, warm feeling inside from helping their community, I don’t see any health promotion project like that being sustainable without a little incentive. And it doesn’t need to be money.
Peruvians love parties. So I throw them. While I’ve heard that some people in the sierra don’t even remember the month they were born in, let alone the year, my host mom in Tumbes can rattle off any birthday of any family member up until her 3rd cousin. So I make a point to celebrate them. I have 15 promoters and lucky for me, their birthdays are all grouped together. During the month of November, we celebrated three and managed to put together a great party and it really didn’t cost a whole lot. We just had music, chicha, beer, and a homemade cake. The best part was just not doing work together and laughing at the volunteer Lindsey try to dance.
However, when money is an issue (and it is for my town because the mayor gives me zip to work with), I raise it. Bingo nights and rifas are great, but they’re just not really my thing. I hate selling tickets to stuff. I mean, even as a Girl Scout I hated the idea of going door to door to sell cookies. I’m pretty sure I just made my mom and grandma buy enough to make my father hate Thin Mints by the end of the year. So instead, I made the people come to me.
The perfect time presented itself when I was showing the movie JUNO to my town with the help of my teen health promoters. We planned it for a Thursday night and outside in the town’s coliseo so a) people could walk by and just come in and b) because my coliseo is big and can hold a bunch of people. The way I managed to raise money was through the adult health promoters selling popcorn and chicha inside (purple corn drink with lots of sugar).
An hour before the movie was scheduled to show, I could be found with seven other health promoters going to town on making popcorn. I even got the guys to get in the kitchen and get their hands dirty with stuffing the salty-goodness into tiny little plastic bags and stirring immense amounts of sugar into the chicha pot. It’s all about beating machismo folks. Despite the fact that we burnt like half of it and I realized that oil really is vital to making popcorn, we managed to sell like 20 bags. And since the popcorn was super salty, this created the dire need for people to quench their thirst with the delicious-chicha. I should have been a business volunteer.
So, what I’m trying to say is, parties and fundraisers like this are ways that my adult health promoters and I have been able to work together and have a ton of fun, but not necessarily in the health promotion area. It’s doing FUN stuff together like this that make people remember why they’re committed to their job, even when it doesn’t involve getting a paycheck. And despite that we only made 14 soles that night (turns out most people don’t want to drink cold chicha on a cold night- because as you all know, it causes AIDS and the bubonic plague at the same time), that’s still enough to buy a few beers and bocaditos for the next birthday party.
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