INTERVIEW: Jacques Aurelien Age: 36 Country of Origin: Benin, Africa Words to the world: Always work and always do a good job. After one week of the Peace Corps experience, I began to seek the answers to questions about the program. I started by interviewing Jacques Aurelien, who is the Training Director of Peace Corps Benin. He and his staff have organized our first impressions of his homeland and Peace Corps Benin, so thoroughly that I doubt there is any way I could pass this stage of the experience without a great sense of accomplishment. He has developed, with the help of a great number of people here in Benin, a reality-based learning program that completely covers all facets of development, from language and health classes to cross-cultural and practical training.
Volunteer O'Keefe (VO): How long have you worked for the Peace Corps? Jacques Aurelien (JA): I have worked for the Peace Corps for six years. VO: Have you enjoyed it? JA: Yes, it was great the first four years.... VO: And now? JA: Now it's great too for me but I am married and my work demands a lot of travel. My wife loves my job but marriage is difficult with all the travel. VO: Do you have children? JA: Yes, I have two children. VO: How old are they? JA: Four and two years old. VO: Is it a boy and a girl? JA: No, two girls. VO: I bet you'd like to have a little boy. JA: Yes, but I decided to have two children and my wife wants three. Actually we're going to make the decision for one more or not. VO: In what capacities have you worked for the Peace Corps? JA: Director of the Training Program. VO: Always? JA: Yes, but I was also the acting director of the Small Business Development Program for four months. VO: In your opinion what are the most important goals of the Pre-Service Learning Program? JA: The most important thing for the Pre-Service Learning is the target. The training program is a road that drives towards a good volunteer, well prepared to do his or her work, to have the ability to integrate and adapt culturally. That is, therefore, the most important thing to me, the target. VO: And what is the target? 100 percent? JA: Yes, I'd like to have 100 percent be volunteers. Right now I have 37, and I want 37 to swear in and I want 37 to make it to the Close of Service (COS) after two or three years. VO: Realistically, is it possible? Thirty-seven is a very large group. JA: For this program, Community Based Training, 37 is the biggest group we've had here. VO: And do you think it's realistic for all 37 of us to make it to COs? You've seen other groups go through the training and of course you know that there are volunteers who did not pass the program, who quit, and some who left for medical reasons. JA: Yes. I don't think it's very realistic because the number is very big and also it doesn't really depend on the number. Sometimes we have a group of eight people and five are going to return to the United States before the COs date. VO: So it depends on the individual. Everyone is responsible for himself. JA: Yes, but what I want the most for your group is that everyone is well prepared to work at his post. VO: This is the first year Peace Corps Benin is teaching people to teach English (TEFL). How has that altered the conditions of training? JA: That is a very good question. First of all we had to recruit the professors and the personnel whose specialty is to teach English. Second, we had to train the professors on our model school system and to teach English we asked for many students for a large model school that is going to include classes for both the junior and senior high school level. It also gave us difficulty to have a program like this that has as its objective the expectations of the government of Benin in the schools. VO: What exactly are the expectations of the government of Benin? JA: The expectations of the government are to teach English and to make English accessible to all the students throughout the country. Also to teach English well and to train the professors. The interactions between the Americans and the professors increase the quality of the English and make English accessible to all the students of Benin because today English is a language that is very important to the world. VO: What do you think are the most important characteristics an individual can bring to training? JA: A lot of openness and other interior characteristics. A lot of compassion and active observation. They should be very reflective, be adaptable and positive. They must not be judgmental. They must also be very flexible because this is a very intense phase of our program. The training program is a little more flexible after the fourth week but it is very demanding for the trainees and we therefore ask that the trainees are much more flexible than we are. VO: I know that you've known the people in my group for only one week now but do you think we have the qualities that you are looking for? JA: So far, yes. I am very satisfied with the punctuality. All of the trainees are on time, the program is respected and the trainees are participating in the sessions. There are cross-cultural lessons and health lessons and the trainees are on their way except for jet lag. VO: How has the Peace Corps changed the lives of the people of Benin? JA: Simply the comprehension of the difference. VO: Between you and us? JA: When we see a volunteer in a village of Benin, and the people of the village have never seen an American, and the American lives beside the villagers, we have the opportunity to see a different component. Therefore, the difference is accessible and we can ask the question "Why are you this way?" When living together we have the opportunity to discern, to identify the difference and to discern. That is a very great part of it. It's not that I'm talking about people as foreigners. It's just that I've seen that there are tome things that are different. VO: But at the same time, things are not that different? JA: Yes, exactly. VO: So you have people who are doing this just because they want to. It's not to make money. It's voluntary. J: Exactly. I agree. VO: In what ways could the training program be improved? JA: To have a better training program you would have to have a training program that is a more reality-based program. You'd have to have a program this is more centered within the trainee. A training program that gave as a consequence a grand opportunity for self-directed learning. It is this that I would love to do in the training. VO: How would you do that? Do you think that you have volunteers that have the motivation to do it without someone to take them by the hand? Because I don't think they would do it. JA: That is a great question. You do this well! It is very difficult, this type of self-directed learning, and I believe that it will come about progressively. I have an image of training where here is the teacher and her is the student. This is the first week of training and here is the end of the program. Self-directed learning goes this way.... VO: Yes, I understand. JA: There you have it. I believe that it's progressive and here I would assign the trainee in a family, and here in a neighborhood, and here in the community, etceteras. VO: Yes, then at the end of the program it is the student who is teaching the teacher. I think to really do it you'd have to have people who stayed here more than two years. You'd have to have people who have already been volunteers as the training facilitators because, of course, here in your country you know more about the culture but it is the volunteers who know the difference. OK, thank you, Jacques.
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