So I guess if I want people to follow what I'm doing here in Paraguay I should actually explain the details of my project; I'm not just following Paraguayan politics and trying to understand the weather here!
As mentioned previously, I am here to pilot a pregnancy prevention program that focuses on the mothers of adolescents, giving them techniques on how to talk to their children and convince them to delay sexual relations, and if they have sex, to use protection. The program itself consists of 3 sessions with mothers, but in order to evaluate whether this program, which has been proven effective in the US, works in Paraguay, I will be doing pre and post tests with both mothers and adolescents, as well as focus groups and interviews with participants and "key informants" who are professionals and experts in the field of adolescent health in in Paraguay.
Whew. So yeah, I began with doing focus groups with adolescent mothers, who gave me some insight into what they thought of parent-teen communication and how parents and schools should teach kids about sexual education. Doing the focus groups was challenging and I learned a lot (that's why I'm doing this, right?). We have been warned consistently that Paraguayans are pretty timid, and indeed trying to get a group of girls who barely knew me to open up about their opinions of communication with parents was not easy. However I did get a lot of interesting information and will be able to use their experiences as some examples for the parents when I work with them.
This week I began doing pre-surveys with parents. If I thought the focus groups were challenging, the surveys were far more challenging. I worked very diligently on formulating the survey so that we were asking the right questions, and spent several hours with a woman at Mil Solidarios going over every single question. I also had my research assistant go over it with me, which I thought would be sufficient to ensure that the survey was ready for the parents who would be attending the workshop. But by the end of the week I still wished I had had more time to work on the surveys, as there were still some questions that were difficult for the mothers to answer.
I was able to survey 35 mothers and some of their sons and daughters this past week. I had originally hoped that most of them could fill the surveys out by themselves, however people in the US are far more used to taking surveys than people are here, so generally we sit with those who are taking the survey and read it question by question, while they fill out their own form. This way they can ask questions and we can further explain if they need help. It's of course more time consuming than I originally thought it would be, but I was happy with my progress!
This week has taught me a lot about data collection, which I guess is one of the "competencies" we're supposed to be learning this summer. But I'm really looking forward to actually beginning to give the workshops and interact in a little bit more relaxed environment with the mothers.
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