kids in the journalism camp, usng the cameras and microphones they made out of recycled materials to practice being journalist.
Me and some of the kids doing obstacles at the military base.
Yup, it is summer time here in Arenillas. You know what that means, time for summer camps. Last year another volunteer and I ran a summer journalism camp for 50 kids aged 6 to 16. It was well, crazy. We even called in the help of three military conscriptos (trainees from the local base) to help us. After that camp, I remember calling home and telling my parents ´I think I don’t ever want to have kids. ´ Lesson learned, right? Hm, I guess not, cause here we are year two of summer camps.
My goal this year was to keep it small and simple, especially since the other volunteer in my site would no longer be around to help. I figured I would do a leadership and communication camp for around 20 kids aged 9 to 14. That seemed doable.
Next thing I know my counterpart group wanted to help out with the camp. Then I saw a poster one day with the title of my camp Juega. Rie. Aprende. and in big letters ´offering 5 courses this summer: soccer, basketball, leadership, communication, and dance.´ Huh?
So I go into the office to ask what happened to the small simple camp. The answer ´well if we are going to do a camp it has to be big there are a lot of possible youth participants!´ Well of course, ideally big camps are great to offer, however they forgot one major detail for a big camp you need one camp counselors and two resources. We have neither.
My simple small summer camp quickly blew up into something big. Before I knew it there were 75 kids signed up, that´s when I had to put my foot down and say no more spaces, we are full. After all, we don’t even have teachers or coaches yet.
Things have been crazy for the last five weeks, but it has all come together. My counterpart group was able to get me sports equipment and a few boxes of school supplies. Unfortunately though my main counterpart switched to another office in a neighboring city in the middle of the camp, leaving me completely in charge.
Although it has been crazy and exhausting, an amazing things has happened during this camp… we have volunteers helping us! And no I don’t mean peace corps volunteers, rather local high school and college students who have volunteered their time as coaches and camp counselors. This is something I´ve never seen happen in my time here. The whole idea of being a volunteer is basically, well, non-existent, but our summer camp is 100% volunteer run, offering all 5 of the disciplines for 75 kids.
I co-coach the basketball camp with a high school basketball player and lead the communication and leadership camp with the help of 5 high school youth counselors, who help me lead the activities. Then we have two college students coaching the soccer camp and a local dance instructor teaching traditional dances. And we´ve been able to offer all of this to the youth for the low price of $1 per week, definitely the cheapest summer camp here in Arenillas!
Next Friday the summer camp comes to an end, and each group will present what they´ve learned to their parents. Although it has been a long 5 weeks of jam-packed activities coordinating these summer camps, seeing some of the breakthroughs the kids have had makes it ´vale la pena, ´ worth it all.
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