Overview of Pre-Service Training

	A recent group in training.

Pre-service training (PST) will provide you with the essential skills needed to successfully complete your first few months in Malawi. The skills focus around integrating into your community and developing and implementing an appropriate work plan with your community and counterparts. Training includes five major components: technical training, cross-culture training; language instruction; personal health and safety training; and the role of the Volunteer in development. A brief description of these components is below.
The PST in Malawi is conducted as a community-based training (CBT), meaning that the bulk of the training takes place in the community, as opposed to in a training center. CBT is a more difficult training model in some respects, as the learning environment is real, not artificial. During a community-based training, most of your time will be spent in villages and communities similar to where you will be placed as Volunteers. Your instructors will set up the learning environment with experiences and meetings designed to allow you to develop the knowledge and skills needed for your work as a Volunteer. Throughout your training, you will live with a Malawian family and work in villages and schools.

Technical Training

PCV Mateo Ward instructing a villageon preparing seedlings.

The technical training will prepare you to work in Malawi by building on the skills you already have and helping you to develop new skills in a manner appropriate to the needs and issues of the country. The Peace Corps staff, Malawian experts, and current Volunteers will conduct the training program. Training places great emphasis on learning how to transfer the skills you have to the community in which you will serve as a Volunteer.
Technical training will include sessions on general environmental, economic, and political situations in Malawi and strategies for working within such a framework. You will review your technical sector’s goals and will meet with the Malawian agencies and organizations that invited the Peace Corps to assist them.

You will be supported and evaluated by experienced Malawian trainers, current Volunteers, and Peace Corps staff throughout the training to build the confidence and skills you will need in order to eventually do your job and be a productive member of your community.

Language Training

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, you will find that language skills are the key to personal and professional satisfaction during your service. These skills will often be critical to your job performance, they will help you integrate into your host community, and can ease your personal adaptation to the new surroundings. Therefore, language training is the heart of the training program, and you must successfully meet minimum language requirements in order to complete training and become a Volunteer. Experienced Malawian language instructors give formal language instruction five days a week in small classes of four to five people. The languages are also introduced in the health, culture, and technical components of training.

	PCV Justin Patin and his counterpart during an In-Service Training.

Your language training will incorporate a community-based approach. You will have classroom time and will be given assignments to work on outside of the classroom and with your host family. Our goal is to get you to a point of basic social communication skills so that you can practice and develop linguistic skills more thoroughly. Prior to swearing in as Volunteers, you will work on strategies to continue language studies during your two years of service.

Cross-Culture Training

As part of your pre-service training, you will live with a Malawian home-stay family. The experience of living with a Malawian host family is designed to ease your transition into life in the villages. Families have gone through an orientation conducted by Peace Corps staff, to explain the purpose of the pre-service training program and to assist them in helping you adapt to living in Malawi. Many Volunteers form strong and lasting friendships with their home-stay families.

Cross-culture and community development will be covered to help improve your skills of perception, communication, and facilitation. Topics such as community mobilization, conflict resolution, gender and development, and traditional and political structures are some examples.

Health

During pre-service training, you will be given basic medical training and information. Volunteers are expected to practice preventive health care and to take responsibility for their own health by adhering to all medical policies. Trainees are required to attend all medical sessions. The topics include preventive health measures and minor and major medical issues that Volunteers may encounter while in Malawi. Sexual health and harassment, nutrition, mental health, and safety issues are also covered.

Safety

During the safety training sessions, you will learn how to adopt a lifestyle that reduces risk in your home, at work, and during your travels. You will also learn appropriate, effective strategies for coping with unwanted attention, and learn about your individual responsibility for promoting safety throughout your service.

Additional Trainings During Volunteer Service

In its commitment to institutionalize quality training, the Peace Corps has implemented a training system which provides trainees and Volunteers with continuous opportunities to examine their commitment to Peace Corps service while increasing their technical and cross-cultural skills.

Over the two-year Volunteer term of service, there are usually four training events. The titles and objectives for those trainings are as follows:

		Pre-service Training
		Objective: To provide trainees with solid technical, language, and cross-cultural knowledge to prepare them for living and working successfully in Malawi.
		Reconnect / In-Service Training
		Objective: To provide an opportunity for Volunteers to upgrade their technical, language, and project development skills while sharing their experiences and reaffirming their commitment after having served for three to six months.
		Mid-Term Conference (Done in conjunction with technical sector in-service)
		Objective: To assist Volunteers in reviewing their first year, reassessing their personal and project objectives, and planning for their second year of service.
		Close of Service Conference
		Objective: To prepare Volunteers for the future after Peace Corps service and to review Volunteers’ respective projects and personal experiences.

The number, length, and design of these trainings will be adapted to the specific needs and conditions that arise. The key to the training system is that training events are integrated and interrelated, from the pre-departure orientation through the end of your service, and are planned, implemented, and evaluated cooperatively by the training staff, Peace Corps staff, and Volunteers.