On June 16th, the Creative Thinking Contest (CTC) Fun Day was held at the Peace Corps Office. The CTC is an event put on by the Gender and Development (GAD) Committee of the US Peace Corps in Jamaica, a group which tries to understand more about how gender and development intersect in Jamaica. The goal of this contest was to get Jamaican school children thinking about how gender is an important part of playing games, and see if they could think of a game that was interesting and fun for both boys and girls. Two of my fellow Volunteers, Brooke Dumain and Khaled Alquaddoomi, organized the event, and I helped them out.
The planning for this event started over a year ago, when GAD started fundraising and deciding on the theme for the event. We thought that making a game would be a fun way for kids to think about gender issues, as opposed to writing an essay or other creative work. Then, students were contacted in parishes across the island, often with the help of volunteers who worked at the schools. Teams from the schools were judged and ten finalists were chosen from 5 schools to participate in the final round of judging.
The Fun Day and final round of judging went off very well. The heart of the day was all of the finalists demonstrating their game for all of the judges (who were high school students) and allowing all those in attendance to play the games. There was also a DJ bus from Digicel, a popcorn and snowcone machine, dancing, and lots of food and gifts for the participants. Shane ran the popcorn machine for much of the day, and Kaelyn was in charge of the prize drawings. The winner was Tivoli Gardens High School, from Kingston. You can read more about the Fun Day from the Gleaner here and see more of our pictures here.
-Shane
4 comments:
As a former GAD member and volunteer at the Inverness Primary School in St. Ann, which other schools were involved in this year's competition? Inquiring minds want to know :)
Andrea Tehan Group 74
P.S. Your pictures are fantastic!
Andrea,
The other schools that were in the finals were Negril All-Age, Brownstown Primary, Woodford All-Age, and Anchovy High School.
Glad you liked the pictures!
Another former GAD member checkin' in here. The fun day looks like a great way to expose the children to new ideas. When I was there in 2000-2001, we held an essay contest. Is that still part of GAD's yearly efforts?
Been a fan of your site for over a year now. Love checking in and seeing it develop. Have a great rest of service, Jeff Mattison Group 70.5
Jeff,
Nice to hear from a GAD member. Instead of the essay contest, this year we had the children design games and advertisement for their games. The Fun Day was the culmination of the contest.
-Shane
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