Final Week - Flurry of Activity

I haven’t been posting much this week since it’s been a fairly busy week both with my work at FTE and during my free time. This is my last week here, so I trying to pack in as much as possible!

One of the things I got to do was conduct some group activities and team building exercises with 3 different youth groups (ages 16-18) between 20-25 people each. They are getting training in order to secure internships. Their aim is to have jobs to save up for university. A great aspect of this is that the training is funded through a partnership with FTE and Save the Children.

My work at FTE definitely picked up this week with everyone wanting a bit from me. By the end of the week, I ended up created two large folders of documents (one in English and one in Spanish) with 7 different categories of training modules for their youth programs. I also left them with a list of suggestions for additional modules and topics they should consider adding depending on the needs of that particular group. These modules include money management, customer service skills, planning for the future (and planning for a plan B etc.) 

Many times, youth in their late teens have difficulty adjusting after high school when they often go from very little financial responsibility when living at home to having several things at once. These important skills and life lessons aren’t covered in most education systems. Perhaps with this training through FTE, these teenagers will be better prepared when entering their adult life. 

Tomorrow afternoon after submitting my final reports to Uniterra, I’ll try to explore a bit more of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (maybe do some souvenir shopping). The plan is to soak up as much of Santa Cruz before Saturday evening. 

It’s incredible how quickly 3 weeks go by. I’m writing this post Thursday night and in exactly 48 hours, I’ll be leaving my hotel for the airport and beginning my long journey back to Ottawa.