The purpose of this guide, therefore, is to provide you with a simple way to learn about the biophysical, economic, and social aspects of your host community during your first several months of service. The method will help you explore and discover how community members perceive and relate to their local natural resource base. As you learn about your host community’s relationship with the local environment, you will find yourself increasingly “community-literate” about local practices and livelihood strategies. In other words, you will become a more valuable community asset for development.
One of the most critical considerations for engaging communities around sensitive topics such as gender-based violence or harmful norms is creating a safe space for these discussions. This brief focuses mainly on emotional safe spaces, but also recognizes that the physical environment-- including the setup of the room or venue-- can greatly affect someone's comfort. This brief discusses what a safe space is really like and how to create one.
Peace Corps published Culture Matters in 1997. As a self-study workbook, it was intended for use by trainees and Volunteers to teach themselves some of the keyc oncepts in intercultural communication. It was meant to complement and add to country-specific cross-cultural training usually done as part of the Peace Corps pre-service training.
Volunteers have a wide range of opportunities to engage with host families, counterparts, colleagues, and other community members around the role and impact of gender norms and expectations in their lives. One unique and important opportunity is engaging men and boys in discussions around positive masculine norms.
Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA) is Peace Corps' unique approach to appreciative, participatory, gender-sensitive, inclusive, sustainable development.