Malawi January 2009

The Malawi January 2009 session came to a close last week with a final evaluation at Lake Malawi. Katy and I are here for another six days to tie up some loose ends and setup new schools for the summer sessions. We're also working on developing a four-week program designed for older professionals (aged 30+) that will take place in August of 2009. We're hoping to build on the sustainability of our pre-existing programs by facilitating the development of extra-curricular HIV/AIDS clubs at primary schools where we have worked in the past. We're also hoping to expand our programming into secondary schools by assisting, where we can, overstretched faculty. We should have the specifics in the next couple of weeks, so keep checking our website for updates. If you're interested in volunteering contact us at info@worldcampforkids.org. In the meantime, here are a few highlights from the January session:

-10 volunteers
-Taught at 6 full primary schools
-Worked with 41 teachers
-Taught nearly 1000 children
-Served approximately 3800 meals
-Planted nearly 200 trees
-Gifted nearly 1000 trees
-Conducted a project with nearly 50 vulnerable street children

Also, be sure to check out a video from the January session compliments of Chris Chung and Jay Brollier. You can watch it on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuYmbAK85Fo

Thanks to everyone for their hard work this January! Keep checking back for updates on Malawi and World Camp.

-Scott Coriell

Gearing up for World Camp Honduras, Summer 2009

World Camp is gearing up for another exciting summer of work in Tela, on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. If you have not volunteered with World Camp before, we work at local schools, teaching about HIV/AIDS prevention in the region with the highest rate of infection in Central America. This year, we have two one month-long sessions, one in June and one in July. Since it was such a success last summer, we will spend more time in the mountain community of El Pital, working with Un Mundo on community development projects and staying with local families. Our R&R trip this year will be to Copan, on the Guatemalan border where we can enjoy good food, some outdoor adventure and learn about Mayan history at the famous Copan ruins. We hope you will join us! Stay tuned!

Camp V: Kapedzera FPS

Kapedzera school was a great success! Working with the teachers was really interesting. We felt as though they taught us a lot more than we were able to teach them! Topics like teaching resources, translation issues, absenteeism, and sex ed were among some of the more interesting things we talked about. We discussed the pros and cons of using explicit and frank language when teaching about sex or anatomy and were interested to hear the teachers divided on the issue. We struggled a bit to explain to the teachers that we were not able to bring in as many tangible resources as they might like and that World Camp’s goal was to bring education, not material items. We feel as though this kind of gift keeps on giving. One of the teachers created an incredible picture box, which he presented to the entire school on the third day of camp during presentations. The box depicted the proper use of condoms, statistics about HIV, and other interesting information. We were really impressed with his hard work and creativity and excited to see his dedication to the issues. In addition, this same teacher worked throughout the three days to motivate his colleagues to organize a day where all the teachers would get tested for HIV and encourage students and villagers to join them. We talked about effective ways to publicize this event and why it was important for the teachers to set such a strong example. These teachers were definitely prepared to act as strong role models and we are hopeful they will implement many of the ideas we discussed during our time there. The World Camp staff was excited to be teaching at a school with such cooperative and eager students. We barely had any glitches throughout the three days…including no rain!! Hopefully this trend will continue throughout our last couple of camps.

-Sara Ramsey and Steph Henderson