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What are your works exactly?

My works are the duties under the field of “Youth Participation�Eas an expert and alsoadministrative coordination of the entire projects. To promote adolescent reproductive health (ARH), the project trained young people as an “Adolescence Promoter�E and built up an association named “Adolescent Club�Eat the health facilities, and is assisting promoters in conveying correct knowledge on ARH to the young people in the community.

In the training and activities of the Adolescent Promoters, we utilize the “Educational Backpack�Edeveloped by the Ministry of Health in Nicaragua. Inside the backpack, there are 12 text books which have themes on ARH such as pregnancy in adolescence, HIV/AIDS and STIs as well as games for to lern those themes. Promoters then reach out to the schools in the community, and conduct educational session to the young people in the same generation with the use of materials of the Backpack.

As living in the developed country, such a backpack is nothing special and not that much cool to me, but it’s a boast of the young people in Nicaragua. There are quite a few young people aiming to be an Adolescent Promoter because of this reason.

Content of Educational Backpack	Educational Backpack is the proof of promoter
The works as an expert (monitoring of activities)	Adolescence Promoters and the counterparts

What’s the staple food in Nicaragua? What do you usually eat? What do you like the best on the menu?

There is a kind of food called “Gallo Pinto�Ethat the local people usually eat, and it�Elooks like the Japanese steamed rice with red beans. They fry the rice and beans with lots of oil, and eat them as a standard breakfast and dinner. Then, tortilla made by the powder of corn and banana are also one of the dish in Nicaragua. Different from the yellow banana we eat, they boil the banana with green skin and eat them like potatoes. My favorite is cheese. The cheese in Nicaragua is famous and most of them are exported to the United States and Europe. The combination of cheese with sour taste and Gallo Pinto is delicious.

Gallo Pinto	Typical lunch food （Beans・Chicken・Rice）

Did you in a fix while staying there?

Firstly, power failure and cut off of water supply always happen. Then, works or things cannot run on time. We guys always joking on “Nicaragua Time�E but the feeling on “meeting the deadline and time�Eis different from Japanese. In short, it is entirely not punctual but it is relaxed in other words. As this attitude is common in public procedures, business service and judiciary and so on, we were totally in a fix. Because of this reason, when you order something in a shop and told to be finished in 3 days, it usually takes 1 week in the time of Nicaragua. When the project started at the beginning, troubles happened every day. Then, when I came back to Japan for the first time in the long time, we noticed that there’s no troubles happened in the day and thought Japan’s really a lucky country.

When did you actually feel the activities of JOICFP useful and helpful?

The education session on the prevention of HIV, targeted at the people in the community, conducted by Adolescence Promoters trained under our project. Not only the young people, but also the adults in the community and the elderly heard the talk by the 15, 16-year-old promoters eagerly. Looking at their face, I could feel the meaning of activities exactly, especially few information source on health in farming villages. In between, when we heard from the people in local areas saying that “The information conveyed by the promoters is very important and we appreciated of them so much�E we were all impressed with it.

Who is the best one you met in the activities? Who is your “MVP�E

Members from the “Adolescence Club�E

Members from the “Adolescence Club”