So What Do You Do?

Many PCV's get asked the question "So what do you do?" all the time.  It's tough to describe a PCV's job.  It's not as easy as a job description in America.  A PCV's role is defined by the needs of the community.  For Youth Development (YD) PCV's, our job includes many things.  In order for you the reader to understand what it means to be a YD PCV let's define a few things first.

What does youth mean?  Many will probably say someone between the ages of 8 to 21.  Here in Morocco youth is defined by your marital status.  If you're not married, you fall into this category.  Another way that we describe youth is young at heart.  Many PCV's work with married members of their community who are looking to better themselves in some capacity.  Whether that be learning English, learning how to knit, learning about healthy lifestyle choices or learning how to write a grant.  This is one of the challenges of being a YD PCV.  It's up to the discretion of the PCV to determine the needs of their community and then find the best way to meet the goals and objectives of PC as it applies to their community.

Many people think that YD means teaching English but that is not the case.  We're not TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) volunteers.  Many of us teach English as a way to meet people in our community and to have a 'job' in the eyes of the community.  When people ask us what we do and we say we're a volunteer they become very confused.  "Volunteer isn't a job.  I asked you what you do!"  When we respond with "I am a teacher" then they understand why we're here.  It also gives us an amount of respect within the community.  So what does YD mean?

YD means that we are working with youth to prepare them for the world of work, teach them about healthy lifestyle choices and working with community members to present youth with the best opportunities for their future.  This includes many different types of activities; teaching English, creating sports clubs, art clubs, theater clubs, journalism clubs, health clubs, environment clubs, working at camps, helping at Special Olympics, SOS Villages, organizing workshops etc.  It's hard to create a job description so that friends and family back home understand why we left our home and traveled to a foreign land for two years.

A new group of trainees just arrived in Morocco this past Wednesday.  In order to give them an idea of what their job will be like for the next two years, I was asked to gather pictures from current PCV's and create a short video about the current work being done in Morocco by YD PCV's.  You can find the finalized video here.  Hopefully this will help explain exactly what it is YD PCV's do.

So what does YD mean?  Well it means that we do what we can within our communities to help youth and community partners to prepare youth to be successful, contributing members of society.  That might still be too vague a description for most people but how do you explain that you sit at your dar chabab and talk to your kids about stereotypes and opportunities to learn outside of Morocco?  How do you tell people that your job includes sitting at your students house for tea or for couscous and talking with their parents about letting their child attend camp over spring break?  There's no job description that can fully explain a YD PCV's job.  That's just another reason why PC is the toughest job you'll ever love.