Hanging out in the Prison

Contrary to what one may think, working with prisoners is cake compared to working with taxi drivers. When people hear that I am working in the prison they ask me what it is like and if I am scared. It is hot and crowded and no, I am not scared at all.

Over the past few months I have been working with a few of the prisoners to plan a training of trainers for the leaders within the prison in the Peace Corps Men’s Health methodology “Here Among Us…” so they can then teach the rest of the prisoners. Working with them is wonderful; they are always there and always willing to work and are the most respectful group of men I have worked with.

So, the money from PEPFAR (Bush’s $ for AIDS) finally came in and we embarked on two days of training with 19 prisoners, a health educator from CPTRT and two women from CHF. CPTRT is the organization that works with prisons all over Honduras and uses an incredibly technical power point presentation that goes completely over the heads of the inmates…thus we invited them to our workshop so they could get some more appropriate ideas to work with this population. CHF is the principal recipient in Honduras for Global Fund, which means that they monitor 46 NGOs and projects across Honduras that receive funding from the Global Fund for work with HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. So, having representatives from this organization was important because if they like our methodology they can promote it to all the projects they work with.
The first day of the training went well although we lost some of the participants (the two Evangelical preachers left after the third activity). The group was receptive, but the knowledge level varied greatly. There was one who couldn’t read and then there were others who already knew everything and were excellent facilitators.
This is Jose, he is incredibly intelligent and an excellent facilitator.

The night of the first day I awoke with horrible stomach pains and diarrhea. The next morning I woke up and took a shower and then collapsed on the couch exhausted. There was no way I could facilitate so Conor and Matt, two other members of the Peace Corps Men’s Health Team went alone to facilitate and I slept until 2 pm. Then I got up to make myself a sandwich and had to sit down on the floor twice during the process. I was really disappointed to miss the day and I especially wanted to hear the testimony of one of the inmates living with HIV.
The third day I was feeling fine so Matt and I went to observe the practicum (after seeing all the activities, the prisoners have to present them). I was impressed with the first group that presented since they did surprising well. The second group unfortunately, bombed most of their activities. Throughout the practicum many of them asked me if I would be coming back once this activity was over, which made me happy that they were thinking about the future. Afterward we met with the 13 participants who finished the whole workshop and took part in the practicum and talked about the goal of presenting this workshop to all the other prisoners over the next few months. I sensed a genuine desire to continue to work with this project and to improve their presentation skills (especially among those who bombed).

As always, I learned a lot through the process and will continue to modify things as we go. Although the methodology is designed for men with varying levels of education and can be used with illiterate audiences some of the activities are still too difficult for them and will need to be modified. Luckily I have a great group to work with and am excited to see them grow as facilitators.