Week 1 in Punta Gorda

The QHO Belize secondary team hopped on a 7 hour bus ride Sunday morning and soon arrived at our first teaching location - Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda is a small town in southern Belize on the Caribbean Sea. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming and the food is delicious. We had amazing first week of teaching! Peter and Siobhan taught at Toledo Community College (TCC) and Jenna and Nicole taught at Julian Cho Technical School. Both pairs had the opportunity to team forms 1 to 4 (the equivalent of grades 9 to 12) and we taught anywhere from 4 to 6 classes per day. The topics both pairs taught included peer pressure, abuse, effective communication, healthy sexual relationships, STIs, consent, and values/attitudes. At TCC, we taught every class in the school. One of our favourite parts of the week was reading our questions in the question box, which we will use to create lessons for next week. We adapted our form 4 lessons because it was their last week of school and they are preparing for exams. To make our lessons more meaningful for them, we answered their questions right away in class to provide them with as much information as possible. On Friday at TCC, we stayed for the form 4 final assembly, where all students in their graduating year had the chance to perform a song, dance or skit. This weekend, we helped set up and attended the Julian Cho Fair, where they had delicious food, a football tournament and games. We are sad to say goodbye to our Program Director, Jenna, who is leaving today. She has been so supportive and helpful both before and on initiative. We are so excited to welcome our final Peer Educator, Samara, and ready to dive into our second week of teaching in Punta Gorda! Still Sweatin', Siobhan, Nicole, Peter and Samara