Last month 3 Americans from an established youth camp in America came to Batam to teach us how to run youth camps. The 3 Americans were accompanied by 3 Filipinos from Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, who are also experienced in running Goducate youth camps in the Philippines.
The 6 of them spent 4 days training 180 potential camp counselors, most of them school teachers. These teachers were chosen from schools that Goducate works with in Batam. The counselors were taught the philosophy behind youth camping (ie, how to use camp activities to teach life-principles and lifeskills), principles of counseling and how to run camp activities and games.
After the 4 days of training, 25 of the counselor-trainees were chosen to be counselors in our weekend camp. 75 campers (aged 15 to 16) from a local senior high school were selected to attend the camp. For almost all the students it was a first-time experience to attend such a camp. For the counselors it was an opportunity to put to practice what they had learned earlier that week.
It was such an unforgettable experience for the students and counselors, that every Saturday afternoon since the end of that camp about 30 of them have continued to gather together to meet for “mini-camps” – and continue to learn life-principles and life-skills as they play together!
Goducate hopes that the counselors and campers will soon be able to run camps for other groups of Indonesian youth.
