By World Camp Intern Zoey Ponder
With the end of Camp Hope comes the beginning of a new year of Camp Hope Follow-Up sessions. Follow-Up sessions are daylong events specifically for the campers that World Camp recruited to attend Camp Hope. These events focus on reinforcing the lessons learned at Camp in a smaller setting that allow campers to grow closer to one another and get one-on-one attention and counseling from World Camp’s dedicated mentors. The first session was all about encouraging campers to dedicate themselves to setting future goals and coming up with ways to achieve those goals. Managing Director, Emily Stallings and I were lucky enough to get to participate in this year’s first Follow-Up.
The first session, held on September 19th, had two activities to teach our campers how to focus on their goals. One of these activities was a game led by Makhumbo Bwanali, former World Camp staff member and long-time Camp Hope Mentor, intended to help the campers see the importance of focus in achieving their goals. Makhumbo led the campers through a card game to teach them the benefits of focusing on their goals and how to help their fellow campers stay focused.
For the other activity, I taught the kids how to make an American craft, dream catchers. Dream catchers were an excellent activity to illustrate goal setting and focus because of the significance of dream catchers. The legend of the dream catcher says that bad dreams get caught in the web while good dreams flow through the hole in the middle of the web and down the feathers onto dreamers. The dream catchers serve as a perfect symbol for resilience – allowing the dream catcher to filter out all the negative thoughts while letting positive thoughts filter through. We decided to have the beads of the dream catcher symbolize goals and the feathers symbolize methods of achieving your goals. One feather was made of paper on which the Mentors helped campers write their goals for the future and strategies for achieving them. One girl wanted to be a nurse and a Camp Hope Mentor and asked me how, other than school, she could achieve her goals. Together, we decided she should practice caring for the people she already knows and helping others. She was so excited by this new idea she flashed a huge smile as she wrote it down lightning fast on her methods feather. It was wonderful to see what all the kids want to be when they grow up; many have dreams of helping others by being police officers, nurses, or mentors. 
At the end of the activity the kids proudly showed off their dream catchers and we took pictures of each camper in front of all the dream catchers made by the group. It was beautiful to see all the bright beads and feathers symbolizing all our campers will one day achieve.
After activities we had lunch prepared by our nutritionist Thandie, who single handedly prepared food for upwards of fifteen people - she was quite the impressive cook! After lunch, she sat with all the kids to talk about the nutritional value of what they ate. I was impressed by how eager all the kids were to talk about their goals and share their knowledge about food groups and healthy eating.
Last, we had time to hangout and play. Several of the girls were very fascinated with my hair as I had just cut it very short. They ran their hands through it about ten times before they believed it was my natural hair.
At the end of the day, with healthy snacks and dream catchers in tow, the kids headed home. One girl held my hand and thanked me “for all I had done for her”. She thanked everyone in this manner, the most sincere thank you I’ve seen anyone of any age give in a long time. All the kids were so open and wonderful, always reaching for a hand to be held or jumping at the chance to answer a question.
The World Camp Rover left the driveway full of waving, singing campers excited about their day and looking forward to the October Follow-Up session!
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