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VSO - Sharing Skills, Changing Lives

Where we do it > Guyana - Marilyn Brophy

Volunteering with VSO wasn’t a quick decision for special educational needs (SEN) teacher Marilyn Brophy – she’d been planning it for 30 years. By the time her family had grown up, she was confident that she had the skills and experience to apply. Ten months later she was on her way to Guyana, where she had a SEN lecturer job waiting for her at the Cyril Potter College of Education.

Tell me about where you were working and what you were doing.

My job was to compile a curriculum on SEN for the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), the main teacher training college in Guyana. I conducted field-based research on the types of disabilities prevalent in the school and communities. I then formulated and documented strategies to train teachers to address these needs in the classroom. I ran staff development sessions on the importance and usefulness of SEN skills and led teaching practice and inspection sessions for trainee students as well as trained teachers already in schools. I also collaborated with various funding agencies to facilitate successful national seminars on SEN.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

I’d gone to Guyana with the assumption that my line-managers would be supportive of my work. I was wrong! For the first six months I was patient, tactful and diplomatic. Then I became assertive - very assertive - with my line-managers. Within days I could feel their respect oozing out towards me. I’m not suggesting that volunteers should go out being overly assertive, as I strongly suspect it was the change in my formally very mild manner that did the trick. If the speech making before I left was anything to go by I actually achieved more than I thought I had. There were seven speeches in all and the content included me being described as a hard-working humanist from whom they had learned a lot about how to care and be hard working themselves. (Gosh, I am usually fairly modest so that was quite difficult to write!)

How much of an impact do you think you made?

As I was the first to go to Guyana to do this work, I was fortunate enough to be able to make a big impact. Not only are students on campus able to study the needs of pupils with SEN and how to meet them, but I also became involved with the Distance Education Dept so that my written courses now go out to 80% of the hinterland centres. There are now several VSO volunteers out there continuing and developing the work I started.

How did you adapt to life in Guyana?

It was both easy and very difficult. My placement was in Guyana’s capital Georgetown, so there were other volunteers and ex-pats who all helped with integration, home-sickness, local knowledge, and problem-sharing. I loved the climate and the wall-to-wall music wherever you go. One of the most difficult things for me to get my head round was the culture. I learned that this means others having very different priorities on issues small as well as large. For example, a former librarian of CPCE died and left a sum of money to the college. This was used to commission a bust of the person and to fund a ceremony for its unveiling, when the library itself was screaming out for up-to-date books. Saying 'good morning' and 'good-afternoon' to everyone you passed on campus was of utmost importance. Staff not turning up for meetings and workshops was par for the course.

How did volunteering develop your professional skills?

Volunteering made me recognise my strengths far more vividly. For example, I’ve always been a natural facilitator and communicator without having fully realised it. For me volunteering meant dragging up to the surface and using and refining every single strength I had.

On a more personal level, one of my skills prior to going to Guyana was that of an artist. In the evenings in my little Guyanese house I produced many paintings that even today I find hard to believe I accomplished. I was invited to join the Guyana Women Artists Association, went to their monthly meetings and exhibited twice at their annual exhibitions. I mention this because it was some kind of turning point for me. I felt at last as if the whole of me had arrived rather than just the me being at work.

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