Camping

Last week we held a camp for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) at our site. 51 children learned some life skills, learned to express their feelings, share their problems, developed some confidence in themselves, ate nutritious meals and had a lot of fun. For pictures click here.This is the culmination of effort beginning in January. In February and March we wrote a proposal for a grant from the Peace Corps, putting some American tax dollars to work helping very needy children. Having a cold yet commonly understood acronym, “OVC”, for such warm and beautiful children speaks of the pervasive problems this epidemic has produced. Most OVCs continue to live in their community after they’ve lost their parents. They may live with extended family or often live as child headed households. In our area, rural KwaZulu Natal, there are few organizations to help these children.

We worked out the initial concept of the camp with our supervisor. The hospital has a lot of land on the mountain ridge we live on. The hospital is a part of a world wide charitable organization and is looking for ways to help OVCs in South Africa. We decided to do a camp as a pilot project to show the larger organization the potential for helping OVCs, with the aim of selling the organization on creating a permanent facility there.

Turning grant money into happy children was often a tortuous conflict of cultures. In our initial musing on the camp we thought we might be able to create a terrific camp for 50 kids during the school holidays in September or December 2007 (September my supervisor target, December my most optimistic guess). For a number of reasons we had to move the camp up to July. In the mean time, negotiations with the Peace Corps resulted in dropping the target from 50 kids to 30, to meet grant funding caps. So when I proudly told my supervisor in April that we had finally received a grant for 30 kids he immediately started trying to scramble to turn 30 into 50. So now I start fretting about doing a camp twice the budgeted size in half the time. I’d call a meeting, ask questions, cry, and rend my clothes— all to the same response, “Not a problem”. For 2 months, I’d nag, my supervisor would respond, “Not a problem”. By the first week in June there was no visible progress, I had spent no money and we didn’t have any staff on hand, or even firmly committed. I was about to write to the Peace Corps and return the grant.

The turning point was getting the Camp Director a young man with some 10 years experience working at a similar camp for OVCs in Zimbabwe. Plans for the confidence/challenge/rope course came in, construction began. Training plans for the weeklong training of our camp counselors and adult leaders were finalized. Camp agenda and training programs were finalized. We got support from the Social Welfare department who provided a social worker, South African Police Service provided a team from there Child Protective Service to talk about child abuse (a terrible problem for these vulnerable children), a psychologist told how to provide referalls. We had a real staff identified and by June 24 the training of the counselors began.

The kids, aged 9 to 14, arrived on the 29th and the fun began. We had a program for our children aimed at letting each child know he was not alone. Others shared similar situations. There is a stigma attached to OVCs here and sharing the experience helps. The children write and tell about there life and problems. The counselors worked with the children to help them understand they had strengths and resources and could successfully work through their life. The kids were challenged to extend themselves, they climbed ropes, went on a 25km trek (mostly cross country), they learned skills, leather working, beading, sewing. All with the aim of improving the kids self confidence. Mainly the kids had fun. It was a joy to hear the laughing, shouting and singing ringing down from the kids campsite.

The camp was a roaring success. Children were happy and excited. The adult and youth leaders developed as real counselors. There were no injuries (save for a scratch on my wrist clambering down a cliff on the 25km trek – I am much clumsier than the kids). Three referrals to Social Welfare were made to get grant monies for children. There exists new bonds between the OVCs and the counselors who were selected from the villages where the kids came from. There is a commitment from local agencies to continue support for the kids. Final assessment:” Not a problem”.