So, one of our roles as a Peace Corps Volunteer is to be a co-facilitator, or to give people small nudges in the right direction and point them in the direction of resources, and to run educational sessions jointly with our work partners, which for me are nurses and health educators here. Recently, I got to do that by giving the nurses in my health post a book written by a former MCH (Maternal and Child Health) volunteer which has lesson plans for running a monthly pregnant women’s group, and I also explained a little more about Peace Corps’ approach to adult education using the ERCA model (see other posts on this topic!). They certainly took this suggestion and hit the ground running, with more requests for this specific book!

The lesson centered around explaining the four demoras (or delays) that pregnant women may encounter upon seeking medical care when they recognize that something is going wrong with their pregnancy. The first demora (or delay) is not knowing what the warning signs in pregnancy are that indicate a woman should seek medical care in the first place. The second is a delay in making a decision to go to the health center or hospital, with the third being a delay in actually getting to the hospital and the fourth being a delay in receiving adequate attention.

The Experience part of this ERCA was a sociodrama (skit) about a pregnant woman who experienced all of the four delays and died in childbirth. The Reflection part was asking the women if something like this had happened in our community and their thoughts about it. The Conceptualization part was a discussion of what the four demoras are, and we played a game by posting pictures of the four demoras next to their title. The Application part of this ERCA lesson was having the women fill out a book on the cuatro demoras with important information such as the phone numbers of the ambulance drivers in our town. We also quizzed them on what the four demoras are.

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