The JOMA conference

So as most of you already know my primary job in Mozambique is to teach but I also can chose to have secondary projects. I am slowly getting a JOMA group together with kids from my school (Jovens para Mudanca e Accao or Youths for Change and Action). JOMA used to be all boys but the organization decided to include girls I’m guessing to improve the message of gender equality and to include girls in the discussion. The organization has overarching themes such as gender equality and leadership but the group at each school can differ depending on what the students want to do. At my school the JOMA group will be doing journalism but there are other JOMA groups in Mozambique doing theatre, photojournalism, art, and other areas of communication. I chose to do journalism because it does not require many resources and there was a journalism group in Sussundenga last year. Many kids are anxious for the group to start again.

Starting the group was (and still is) a little complicated because we (the PCVs) weren’t given that much direction and I don’t consider myself an expert on how to run a youth group nor a master at journalism. Also it is made more difficult because the last volunteer in Suss terminated early and the group came to a screeching halt. One of the teachers has both the computer and the printer (which was bought with money from a VAST grant) that the students were using to write/print the newspaper in his house and supposedly is not facilitating students with their use (in other words he kind of stole them but I am going to get them back).
I have a Mozambican counterpart helping me with JOMA. He is a really nice English teacher named Nelson who is patient with me and enthusiastic about projects like JOMA and English Theatre. We tried having the first meeting before the trimester ended, which meant getting a notice printed and approved by the director of the school and putting it on the bulletin board outside. However the students aren’t really used to looking at the board and our meeting turned into a recruiting session at the school. Despite the failed meeting we now have a list with about 25 names and I know more will join once we get going.

The JOMA conference was three days and took place in Chimoio with many other groups from central and southern Mozambique. We were able to take three students and a counterpart. The point of the conference was for the students and counterparts to learn about issues such as gender equality, sexual health and HIV, self-esteem, and leadership, as well as to meet other students and teachers from other schools. Despite the difficulties with the facilitator the conference went well and the students really appreciated it. They do not have many chances to express their own opinion, much less about topics such as equality for women. There were big lecture-style talks when the students got to talk but also small discussion groups which I thought was more interesting and productive. One problem, though, was that the counterparts tended to dominate the discussions because they thought they knew more and teaching in Mozambique is traditionally top-down. There were also fun activities like agree or disagree with a statement and then the students would have to defend themselves. We also played a lot of games which was great to break the ice. I got to know only a couple of the students at the conference, and I still don’t know my own students that well. Some of the students are really awesome though. It is really cool to see a male student who acknowledges and sees the injustice that women are given more work in Mozambique or a female students who is able to say in front of everyone that a man should not be allowed to marry more than one woman. (To give you an idea of how far Mozambique has to come but also how big the gap is between generations, the Mozambican facilitator of the conference has two wives. After the young woman’s comment he quickly and irritably changed the subject.)

After dinner each night there was a continuing competition between four groups, each represented by a different animal. I was in the snakes. There were also elephants, lions, and monkeys. Each group had at least one chant and ways to intimidate the other teams (there was a lot of booing too...). The first night there was so much energy in the conference room we had to tell both the students and the counterparts to calm down multiple times. There was almost a fight in the musical chairs game but we eventually got everyone to calm down. The last night there was a dance competition and each group performed. There were two teams doing MJ's Thriller but it was OK cause they both rocked. We anounced the winners of the three day long competition but after all the competativeness everyone was pretty nonchalant about it.

So now I'm ready to get back to site and discuss how to apply what we learned in the conference to journalism. Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing.