Skill share in Kano...

The volunteers had our patch meeting/skill share in Kano last week. Over 30 of us got together from all over Northern Nigeria, including several brand new volunteers. The workshops were interesting and I particularly enjoyed the one on the impact of gender in our work. A simple exercise - we were divided into 4 groups and each group was given a couple of recent newspapers. We were asked to tear out the pictures and place the photos of men in one row and women in another row. Incredibly, more than 80% of the pictures were of men, and those of women reflected their place in the societial hierarchy. For instance a named man pictured with his unnamed wives or women protrayed as victims. The exercise was also enriched because we are such a diverse group - volunteers come from all corners of the world; we are different ages, different religions, different genders. A true learning experience.