Global Camps Africa - Camp Sizanani Reports

Camp Sizanani Reports

Global Camps Founder and CEO Phil Lilienthal oversees the camps in South Africa and writes back home after the camp sessions. His reports give us a unique opportunity to be there through his eyes and provide us insight into the environment of the camp and the experiences of the campers.

Camp Sizanani - Sept.-Oct. 2009 Camp

The session went well. We had a coed session, with 136 campers. 130 were from a single, very poor area in Soweto, where teachers were supposed to select students based on need. The other 6 were from a poor area of Krugersdorp where we have had campers before.

One of the interesting things was that all of the 130 had been through a peer education course given by many of our staff before they arrived. Thus, their life skills course was at a different level, including things life self-empowerment and decision-making.

As I mentioned, we have many things revealed during every camp. The stories below are some that came out during the session that just ended.

The items below the line are what happened when the campers got to the pick up point in Soweto at the end of camp. I thought it would be of some interest.

25 of 69 girls have advised us that they have been raped. 5 of the perpetrators were arrested and are now back on the street. Their families have told them to get over it and have not encouraged counseling. For most, camp is their first disclosure of the violence.
A 15-year old boy was upset by continuing abusive behavior and remarks on both sides between his parents. In despair, he took to the street to hang out with "friends." 4 of them-a 20 year old, a 10 year old, and another 15 year old started robbing people for fun. They learned of a supermarket owner (the father of our camper's girl friend) who kept the day's proceeds, about $5500, in his desk drawer each night and deposited it the next morning. The 4 worked out a plan, broke in and were opening the drawer when the owner, unexpectedly to the burglars, walked in. All had guns, but our camper was the only one who shot. That happened the day before he came to camp.

Haunted by the horror of that night, he wants to see if the man died, speak to him and ask forgiveness if he didn't, and turn himself in to the police. He wants to put that life behind him and is also fearful of violence from the other gang members if he voluntarily talks to the police.
A camper's father was a known serial killer. The community moved when the police were slow and killed him, burning the killer/victim in front of his family.

Since then, the son has been treated as suspect as fruit of the poisonous tree. No one will be friends or allow their friends to deal with him. He is too poor to move.
A camper gets her one meal a day at school and has to put part of her food in her pockets to feed the other 3 in her family who have nothing at home.

Mbali, our 24-year old director, decided that she would go back on the bus with the campers and then get come back to camp for the debriefing with the counselors. She wanted a chance to meet with the parents at the bus and to let them know what had happened at camp and to have the campers there as examples.

It turned out to be a great idea and one that we might have to work in to our regular pattern.

She said the bus ride was great as the kids were all singing and keeping the excitement from camp going. Often it is quiet and they sleep.

At Bara (Baragwanath, the hospital), more than half the campers were met by family members. She spoke to the parents about what happened at camp and the campers sang and danced and some of them spoke to the parents.

One who spoke was the boy who had shot his girl friend's father during the burglary. The father was at Bara. The boy saw him and was at once relieved that he was alive but scared of facing him. He took Mbali's hand and went to him and apologized. The man accepted the boy's apology, said he wouldn't press charges, but that the boy would have to give up the names of his accomplices. Then the boy spoke to the group and publicly told them what had happened.

Another one who spoke was the boy whose father had been the serial killer and who had been burned to death by the community. He told how his father had been a good father to him and had made him a better person than the father. Despite the father's horrible actions, the boy loved him and would not renounce him as a father. He said that he was not his father and that he greatly sympathized with those who had lost family members at his father's hands, but that he had lost a father by their hands. He asked to be accepted on his own as a person and not be stigmatized because of his father's actions.

Three of the mothers whose children had been murdered came up to him and gave him hugs and forgave him.

Pretty dramatic and immediate results from camp.

Phil

Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 October 2009 07:15

Camp Sizanani - April 2009 Camp

There are so many interesting and exciting things at each camp session that I should share them sooner, rather than wait to make a more formal camp report. At the very least, it rewards those who make their way to this site.

160 campers, 126 from a single Soweto school;
Coed, ages 14-19. Many have had a 9-session, peer education life skills session called "Future Footprints." This is an Elton John AIDS Foundation-sponsored project that HIVSA is implementing. This is the first school they have been in;
Visitors from 3 provincial programs in Western Cape, Mpumalanga, and the Free State seeing how camp could add to their child/youth programs;
14 makeup artists from MAC Cosmetics worked with our 85 girls to give them makeovers and improve their self-esteem by showing how to make themselves more beautiful;
reuniting with two Camp Winnebago kitchen workers from the 1990s who are, respectively, managing director of a large mushroom farm and distributor and a corporate jet sales director for all of Africa, both interested in assisting us;
another performance by the inspiring Hecate Theatre Group urging, in an engaging, funny way, that campers get tested for HIV;
having professional counseling and HIV testing personnel at camp. They saw 70 campers and 69 got tested; and
at the US Embassy in Pretoria, I met with the acting ambassador, the director of US AID, and the representative of the CDC (Center for Disease Control). They had excellent ideas for providing us with good contacts in South Africa. I met with operational people at AID and are working with them to have us provide training to 32 of their camp programs.

Camp Sizanani - March and September 2008 Camps

In the course of an incredible year in U.S. politics, much has been happening to us, too.

We have had two successful camps in March and September for 325 children and a third one, with 150 girls scheduled to arrive on the 10th. We will have a total of nearly 500 campers for the year. Combined with an average of 600 children at our biweekly, after-camp Kids Clubs, we have had a continuing impact on many of the 3,500 campers who have been through the Camp Sizanani program to date.

A few things came together for me in my thinking this year:

First, I have met with nonprofit, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), interested in working with us, in South Africa, Rwanda and Uganda. While we are focusing on camp and the value it brings to children's lives, they are often involved in all aspects of a child's well-being. I have been impressed by the extensive work that they are doing with children.

They focus on education, health, agriculture, income-generating activities, and other key segments of life that are needed to improve children's (usually, orphans) lives. It is exhausting to see the complete involvement of the wonderful people from the NGOs who work at all levels with the people being served and makes me realize how relatively simple and uncomplicated our program is.

It is a tribute both to us and to them that they see the merit and value of looking to taking on a camp program in the future of their organizations while not having the benefit of additional personnel to administer it.

Second, we find that we can have a great impact by training the leaders of other organizations who are interested in running camps of their own.

One NGO, a foster home in South Africa, wanted to start a camp. They sent their counselor staff to a single 4-day training that we ran. They then started their own camp.

A group in Cape Town was interested in starting its own camp. They visited us to observe our program and, when they were ready to begin, asked three of our top staff to be part of their first camp. Our people were instrumental in making the camp a success.

Another already existing camp in Uganda was not satisfied with its program and sent one of its directors to our September staff training and camp. The director was, from the time he finished his first day of training till he left at the end of camp, giddy with excitement at what he was learning and the structure of our program. He said he had no idea that so much could be accomplished at camp.

Ugandan Director of Children of Grace, Titus Isiko, at staff training

December 2007 - Our 26th Camp

We have now had 26 camp sessions with nearly 3,200 campers. We started a second camp, in association with God's Golden Acre, which has taken off on its own, after a very brief infancy.

Girls in PFDs donated by Camp Tawingo

We had our first Board visit to South Africa. Four of the nine Board members of Global Camps Africa and our development director, Jean White, back for the second time at her own expense, spent 12 exiting and emotional days visiting funders and potential funders in Johannesburg, one of the orphanages we work with, Camp Sizanani, our flagship camp, God's Golden Acre, our current site at The Bekker School, and the site we used for the majority of our camps, at The Retreat, and then a few days in Cape Town to visit Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was kept incarcerated for 27 years, and some of the local important sites in that beautiful and interesting city.

Dentist, American Campers, and Extra Points - June and July 2007 Camps

Dear Friends,

The summer in South Africa is their winter. Being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed. While the days are generally sunny and pleasant (usually in the 60s and 70s), the nights are quite chilly where we are. A normal low is 45 degrees, but it sometimes gets to freezing and this year it snowed!

The 135 girls in June and 115 boys in July took this all in their stride. After all, it's cold and they have fewer blankets where they live, so what's the problem? Our only concession to the weather is not to have swimming in the program for the two camps we have in June and July. The campers, because they only come to camp for one session, have nothing to compare it to, so they are having the best time of their life and won't tolerate complaining by the staff.

We Have Twins! Camps March and April 2007

Dear Friends:

We had three camps operating simultaneously in March/April. What excitement and pride to jump from a single camp to three.

Our second camp was with God's Golden Acre (GGA), a South African nonprofit in KwaZulu Natal (KZN), the province in South Africa most heavily infected with HIV/AIDS. www.godsgoldenacre.org. Theywork with children in foster care; do outreach work into the communities around them with training and food parcels for the most needy families; and sponsor more than 100 soccer teams in KZN.

Our third camp was with Volunteers in Service Overseas (VSO), a British organization with 1500 volunteers working in 34 countries. www.vso.org.uk Their project in Limpopo Province, in conjunction with the Ndlovu Medical Centre, was working with needy children and they wanted to start a camp program but needed some technical advice and support.

Fresh from the water element on the ropes course, a tired, but happy, camper emerges

December 2006 Camp and January 2007 Camp Reports

The December and January camps brought with them new programs that were not only successful, but opened my eyes to the value of program components that might be valuable even if they do not bring the promise of continuity.

The 118 boys and 99 girls at the two camps had no visible alteration of their experience of what camp had to offer or a lessening of their total enjoyment of camp. But, in fact, we had radical (for us) changes in the program.

October 2006 Camp Report

Staff members, including the ones pictured here, were the real stars of our 16th camp, which took place this past September/October. They worked together as one, in a spirit of joyful cooperation, providing the 127 girls who attended this camp with an exceedingly happy experience.

The cohesiveness of the staff marks an evolutionary development for WorldCamps. We recognized the need for bonding among staff members and had the good fortune to find a skilled professional to be the bonding agent. Gabrielle Raill, Director of Camp Ouareau in Canada, engaged the staff members in a powerful exercise, along with her staff member Rhianna Walz of Australia.

Our three trainers – Jackie, Mellowman, and Phumlani, have formed a dynamite staff training group. They sense what is needed and how to meet the need while simultaneously having fun.

June 2006 and July 2006 Camp Reports

Dear Friends of Sizanani and WorldCamps,

We completed the final two of our three camps with the EW Hobbs Elementary School in Soweto. This represented a departure from our normal practice of reaching out in the community to select children from orphanages, other youth groups, and from among the children of patients in the support groups of our partner, HIVSA, a large psycho-social AIDS Clinic in Soweto.

Camp Results Report from E.W. Hobbs Primary School

Camp Results Report
from E.W. Hobbs Primary School,
Kliptown, South Africa

Prepared by A.B. PLAATJES
School Camp Coordinator

Camp Sizanani
To all concerned.

Allow me to thank you and your organization for the wonderful opportunity you afforded our pupils.

The programme is ground breaking in it’s approach and it definitely bears fruits. I do not personally teach all the children that went on camp, but I have seen a change in all/most of the children as I interact with them. There is a change in the atmosphere at school. When speaking to them they all seem to have something positive to say about the camp and all ask me when they will be attending the next camp.

April 2006 Camp Report

I want to share with you, as a donor and supporter of WorldCamps, some important recent information.

These intent young women, campers at our most recent camp in April, were part of an entire 6th and 7th grade at a Soweto elementary school. Moving from our past patterns of taking children from a wide range of places, we decided that it might make a greater impact to have an already existing community, such as a school, participate in the camp program at the same time.

It also provided us with the challenge/opportunity of our first coed camp.

It is an interesting school with a range of contrasts. It has 1400 children and about half of them speak English as a first language. For others it's a second and often a third language. Many of the homes have three generations living in them--grandparents, parents, and children, with many aunts, uncles and cousins. Many have no parents, but older siblings heading the household. Some of these are Child Head of Households, a growing number of homes in Africa as parents die of AIDS or AIDS-related diseases.

Report following the December 2005 and January 2006 Camp Sessions

Dear Friend Of WorldCamps,

I feel a little like the corporate president telling you, the shareholders, how well the company has done over the year.

We have done well. It's hard to believe that in January 2004 we held our first camp in South Africa. For those of you less familiar with WorldCamps, our camp program delivers a traditional camp experience with a special emphasis on HIV/AIDS awareness to South African youth.

In the past two years we have made great strides. In the last year alone we doubled the number of children who were able to attend our camps. We have served a total of 1512 campers at the 12 camps we have had since January 2004.

Our post-camp Kids Club programs, which serve as a follow-up mechanism for our campers, have doubled in size. Last week, alone, 500 former campers attended one of the four clubs.

September 2005 Camp Report-Our 10th Camp!

The photo above is a reminder that, while the plans for growth and development of camp are important and exciting, we are all about the children we serve. They remain terribly needy, vibrant and vivacious, spirited, warm, talented and appreciative. They are like sponges as they absorb the information we provide. There are new revelations at each camp as we work toward making the camp program and the after camp Kids Club program more effective.

The camp program is constantly being stretched. Michelle Schorn, my South African counterpart, is doing all the day to day work of camp. Rather than relaxing as she gets the many systems in place that are needed for a camp that has 6 sessions a year with 135 new campers at each camp, she is constantly challenging our staff and the program's structure with new ideas. We tried a 7-period day in order to cram in more activities for the children (and realized that it was too much). She asked Thulani, the very talented head of Drama to adapt "Julius Caesar," being studied by one grade in the public school curriculum next year, and place it in a Soweto setting, rather than in Rome. It was performed by the older four (of nine) groups, each group performing a different act with a different cast. It was a great success and we can't wait to hear how the campers like Shakespeare's version.

December 2004 Camp Report

As we complete the final three camps of our first program year of 8 camps serving nearly 800 children, I want to share an article that was written about us in the Boston Globe.

From The Boston Globe, January 24, 2005

His summer camps provide fun, games, and lessons about life and the epidemic. By John Donnelly, Globe Staff | January 24, 2005

MAGALIESBURG, South Africa -- Neo Pertunia, a 15-year-old girl from Soweto, recalls nervously packing for a 10-day summer camp this month, the longest she would ever be away from home.

She stuffed two pairs of jeans, five T-shirts, and her beloved baby-blue high-top sneakers into a bag. And she carried with her the sound of her worried mother's voice, "Please take care of yourself, Neo."

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