“Summer Camp”

The Summer Camp.

Five days plenty of games and fun, based on different topics and designed to make the kids learn in a non-formal way about the healthy lifestyle.

The program for the whole Summer Camp was developed by the volunteers, building a program based on the next topics: meeting each other, communication and social interaction, sports day, healthy live and a picnic.

For the first day was designed by the Spanish volunteers and based on the general idea of meeting each other and learning all the names, or at least two. For the kids, it was relatively easy remember the names of the volunteers, but the opposite was not so easy.

For the second day, which was developed by Alessia and Marion, the games were oriented to make the kids work in groups and communicate between them. It was a really funny day and this day the favourite game of the kids came into the world, Tom and Jerry. It is a simple game which the kids form couples in, being one the players Tom and the other Jerry. As it can be guessed, Tom has to catch Jerry in order to become Jerry, although Jerry, to escape from Tom, can join one of the couples, being one of their members the new Jerry. This simple game, which the kids only have to run in, was their favourite and continues like that. If you want to make something successful with them, just play Tom and Jerry.

 

The third day, the volunteers planned to go with the kids to the sports field, playing with them football, badminton and basketball. As was expected, all the boys went immediately to play football. We think that they came with that in their minds from the beginning. The rest split between the other two games, making a small competition. Even the volunteers joined the games and played with them.

The fourth day, developed by Emmeline, was planned to make them think about the food that they are eating, trying to make for them more attractive the fruits. For that, the game with that aim was mainly use apples to make animals or figures. We brought to them several examples, but they, with a lot of creativity, made a lot of different and nice models. Apart of that, a race and relaxing games were also planned. The kids enjoyed a lot both of the activities, having fun and laughing.

For the last day, the picnic day, the volunteers planned a short trip, one hour long, to a close village and they also planned a couple of games to play with them. At the beginning it was rainy and for that, it was proposed to the kids stay in town instead of hiking, but the kids wanted to hike and do the picnic. For that at the end, despite the bad weather, all together went to have a nice walk and a relaxing picnic.

The kids and the volunteers, both of them, enjoyed a lot the Summer Camp, being a nice surprise had more than ten kids, arriving one day to be near twenty. Some of the days, due to the success of the activities, some of them were longer than planned initially, being some of the activities don’t played, although they were included in another of the days.

Additionally, for the success of the Summer Camp, an extra picnic-excursion activity with parents was organized, being the journey six hours long and being the destination Bojentsi. At the beginning of the hike, we asked the kids to collect the rubbish that was on the path. In an unexpected way, the simple task turned into a competition between the kids to see who was the one collecting more things.

During that day, we had a nice weather and the kids were not too much hooligan, a great combination. At the end, everyone was tired, but happy at the same time.

 

Author: “The Change is in You” Association`s volunteers