Summer Camp 2009

Last week a few PC volunteers and I organized a summer camp entitled “Keep Our Land Clean and Our People Healthy,” (cheesy name I know), where me and 5 other PC volunteers taught Life Skills (Team-Building, Communication Skills and Leadership Skills), Environmental education and nutrition—all topics I believed were important for children in the 8-11th form (~8-11 grade). After organizing my winter camp, I wanted this camp to be more sustainable, because all I did the first go-around was give them information and so I never knew to what extent they applied it to their own lives. So what we did differently this time was we had a training of trainers the first day, in which we taught 6 school students the above subjects and trained them so that they would, in turn, teach the other camp participants enabling them to become leaders themselves. Although we were nervous about whether the trainers would take their positions seriously, they turned out to be super enthusiastic and extremely educational. Here are some pictures of the first two days of camp:

Meet your friendly PC volunteers.

For the next three days, we wanted all camp participants to implement what they learned in a real-life situation. So what we did to try and target all topics taught was to take them somewhere where they can do a clean-up project… and what’s a better place to do a clean-up project in the middle of the summer than at a beach? Three beaches!

The idea for nutrition was to have them cook a nutritious lunch for everyone while enjoying the rest of the time out at the beach. Unfortunately, the meal didn’t stray much from a typical Kyrgyz cuisine. Oh well, can’t have everything!

At the end of it all, we all had a lot of fun. The camp, in my opinion, was a success and it showed that learning can be done in a fun way. After all, no one wants to give up their summer to do a lame camp. I know I don’t.

The next two days the weather was great.

All campers showed great teamwork by collectively cleaning up the beach and promoting a clean environment for on-lookers to see. Unfortunately on first day at the beach it was raining, but that didn’t stop the campers!

Even locals joined in on the cleaning!

FYI: Some of the pics and captions are out of order. I was having trouble with my comp and uploading pics so please bear with me. Thanks!