#whatpcvsdo

Guess what are back from the print shop: Our #HealthEducation books! Here you can see the colorful and informative manual made by our 6th graders. Our 7th graders also made one (not shown). Though it's an important class, there still aren't universal textbooks for Health Education in Moldovan schools. Our students remedied this by creating our own based on the topics we've studied for two years together. We then used technology available at our local #Novateca library to scan all the pages and make an e-book, which we're sharing with other schools and our community. You can find this at http://online.anyflip.com/xgcd/ugxc/ #whatpcvsdo #howiseepc #peacecorpsmoldova

So grateful to my peers and the facilitators from #PeaceCorps for the preparatory discussion tonight and the opportunity to participate in the training/workshop tomorrow from Intercultural Competence, Diversity & Inclusion. #chisinau #whatPCVsDo (at Chisinau, Moldova)

Up to some fun antics today! I can't wait for the final product to be done and for Peace Corps Moldova to share the final product with the world. I am very lucky our Development Volunteers are so flexible and brave! #MotherTongueDay #PeaceCorpsMoldova #WhatPCVsDo (at Peace Corps Moldova Offices)

Lots of #PeaceCorpsVolunteers out for the national #FestivalulVoluntarilor / Volunteer Festival in #Chisinau. I'm pretty confident that one of these fine folks is going to be the 2016 International Volunteer of the Year - wish them luck! Grateful to be out celebrating the spirit and importance of volunteerism with friends today! #WhatPCVsDo #Celebration #BAPhotoChallenge (at Teatrul Eugene Ionesco)

What an inspiring volunteer project to be a part of! This coming Friday, Moldova's national campaign "16 Days Against Gender-based Violence" starts. In support of this campaign, @wildchrystal has been organizing a travelling presentation on gender-based violence, with a focus on preventing sexual harassment and sexual assault. I was honored to participate in the first presentation in Mihai Eminescu High School. Here you see the school administrators who made the event possible, two astounding youth volunteers who made the presentation more understandable, a locally-based American entrepreneur who is volunteering with us, and four #PeaceCorpsVolunteers involved in bringing the presentation to this school. Today it continues in the village Cotujenii Mari. In a few weeks, it will make its way to my school, too. #16days #16zile #WhatPCVsDo (at Liceul Teoretic "Mihai Eminescu")

As aspect of life that has shown up in my work off and on is #menstruation. As a student, my activism and writing sometimes centered around it, including the amazing opportunity I had to be a part of the Cincinnati-based feminist zine The Rag. Much more recently, I am grateful to have been involved in supporting future #PeaceCorpsVolunteers in preparing around menstruation and how to support menstruators in general. I am honored to have been a part of our successful push for partial coverage of the cost of menstrual products for current #PCVs in #Moldova. I'm grateful to have helped #TEECH install indoor bathrooms with stalls in a school this summer, which helps menstruating students be able to fully participate in school. Now I'm excitedly working on workshops about menstruation that can be taught in general by teachers/volunteers here and that will be coupled with #LetGirlsLearn projects that agree to it. #MenstruationMatters #WhatPCVsDo #ThisIsMyLife #BAPhotoChallenge

I so enjoy the #PeaceCorpsMoldova #PeerSupportNetwork fall training this weekend! We had a great time building relationships between #PSN representatives new and continuing, exploring & practicing how to best support our peers and each other so that we can thrive and take pride in our service in #Moldova. So grateful to be learning and working in this great team! #WhatPCVsDo #HowISeePC (at Peace Corps Moldova Offices)

Our youth volunteers from #Moldova planned another great mural for the school! They painted a tree trunk and branches. Then they invited all of the volunteers, staff, and youth who've been around this week installing indoor bathrooms (as well as art) & doing repairs to participate. We painted a hand and each made a "leaf" with our handprint. We've grown a tree like we've grown our relationships, skills, and intercultural knowledge this week! #TEECH #PeaceCorpsVolunteers #WhatPCVsDo (at Ivancea, Orhei, Moldova)