Goducate has been offered the free use of a camp-site in a “prime” location near one of the busiest towns in Batam, Indonesia. This brand new facility is not the typical youth camp-site but is ideal for “urban” camping. It consists of 6 terrace-houses (connected houses), an internal covered courtyard and a community hall. The whole complex was donated by generous Koreans as a community-center for this part of Indonesia.
Goducate will run the first Camping English International (CEI) for 60 Indonesian teenagers on April 2 to 4. Young adults and youth from Singapore and Philippines will organise the camp and the fun-activities. An experienced lady drama teacher from Singapore will run the drama workshops. All activities will be conducted in English to encourage (force!) the Indonesians to converse in English. The main objective of this camp is to help the campers to improve their spoken English. The other objectives of the camp are to give the Indonesian youth exposure to other cultures, build bonds between Indonesians, Singaporeans and Filipinos and for the youths from these countries to learn from one another.
If this first CEI camp is successful, Goducate hopes to run a monthly camp and to run regular daily weekday English and computer classes in that campsite. According to Goducate’s Batam Advisor, there is presently a ready pool of 30,000 teenagers who are keen to learn English in Batam through CEI!