Camp GLOW: Empowering, Healthy Living, and Leadership

One of the many great things about Peace Corps versus other organizations that you might volunteer or work with, is that because Peace Corps is an American government organization, there are many programs that are established and used throughout all of Peace Corps, no matter the country it is being used in. That might not sound great, but when you are trying to design and build a summer camp in a country that does not really have a concept of camps, having that framework already built makes your project run smoother. Across the world around different times of the year, Peace Corps Volunteers collaborate to put on their own version of a Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). There is also a version for agriculture called Camp GROW. My Chi Omega sister Elisabet is finishing up her 2 year Education PC service in Columbia and she just participated in a Camp GLOW at her site.

Although it is different in every country with how volunteers are spread out and placed, depending on location and sector, most countries have volunteers come together in a central location after collaborating on sessions to teach and other details like t-shirts and dates, they bring children from their own sites, and they run “summer camp” for a week, with sessions ranging from condom balloon tosses (HIV/AIDS), to soap making/hand washing, to bashing a piñata after saying why they are a strong man or woman. Every Camp has different sessions, because as Peace Corps Volunteers we get to pick which sessions we run, as long as they fit in the camp framework of health, HIV/AIDS prevention, leadership, or team building.

Peace Corps Volunteers have a lot of freedom in how they run their camps, once their grant is submitted. Some camps break students into groups and do competitions while others have all the students together all the time. Some groups have “team leaders” and junior camp counselors while others have the PCVs and their Ethiopian counterparts and that’s it. Some focus more on life skills and gender equality while others focus more on health and agriculture. It is really up to the group of volunteers who are running each camp what they want to do with it, within the basic Peace Corps framework and ideas.

I invited 4 students from my school and classes, although 1 boy did not come. I ended up bringing 2 girls and a boy from my 3 classes. I picked them based off of their participation in class, their willingness to learn, and their respect for me and my teaching. The girls always sat in front in my class, were very smart, and would help their fellow students without being over bearing. The boy did not sit in the front of my class, but was always polite and respectful and would help his friends before himself. Although I had many students I could have brought, I thought these 3 deserved it more than most—and I think they ended up getting a lot out of it.

The week was difficult at times, because the volunteers had a lot of stress on us, and we did not always handle it the best. The back of the classroom reminded me of high school or middle school for most of it with whispers about fellow volunteers, how a session was being run, or things out of our control. We did it at a university, and the experiences we had were not always the best with the staff or the accommodations. However, that is not the point. There were some things that could have been improved on, but isn’t that always how it is? Hindsight and looking back, it’s easy enough to criticize and say what could have been done differently, but before and in the moment it’s much more difficult to think out exactly how everything might or might not work out. Instead of dwelling on what could have been done differently though, I’m going to talk about some of the sessions that I thought seemed the most fulfilling for the students. All the sessions were “run” by Volunteers, however they were picked by Volunteers and then they were taught and translated into Tigrinia by Ethiopian Counterparts (people in our communities who help us with our jobs and integration).

“Walk A Kilometer In Her Shoes”

Many of the sessions that were run at camp were from the GAD manual (Gender and Development—one of the committees we have in PC that deals with gender issues in Ethiopia, and gives us tools to help our community and especially the females in our community with the many issues they may face). This is one of the PCVs favorite sessions to both watch and run. It has different stations, where boys have to fit into plastic jelly shoes (the girl kind), hold a water balloon like a baby without dropping it, and complete tasks such as chopping onions and potatoes, carrying jerry cans of water, and pouring water from a jerry can into a cup and carrying it without spilling the water while carrying a bag of rocks. This might sound silly to people back home, but women do this every day while holding their children and this is a good a fun activity to show the men just how much work the women do, and how difficult it can be. The boys were laughing at the beginning, but I think had an appreciation for the females by the end. The girls were having a great time watching the boys try to complete these tasks, not always successfully. The great moment for me was watching a boy camper struggle with cutting the onions and watching one of the female campers coaching him and helping him cut them in a way that would help him become faster.

“Building Self-Esteem and Pat-On-The-Back”

One thing that many students struggle with is self-esteem and knowing there are good enough. In the US I think we tend to pat people on the back and reward them in more ways than here. Here I never really see adults tell teenagers good job. I don’t mean to say that they should all be receiving congratulations all the time, but I think appreciation is just showing differently here. In this activity they talked about self-esteem, what it is and how you can grow your own self-esteem while helping others. They then drew a picture of themselves on a piece of paper and taped it to their backs. All the students (and some of us PCVs) got up and wrote a nice word or two on the papers taped on the backs of their fellow campers. This was a great activity to help them remember what others think of them, and that they all have many great qualities that they might not always recognize, but that others certainly do.

“Life Tree”

I might be a little partial to this one, because this was one of the sessions I ran, but I found this one really interesting to talk to the individual campers as they were working. Each camper drew a tree with roots, 3 levels of leaves, clouds on one side, and a lightning bolt on the other side. The roots represent where the students are starting from now, what skills they posses, and what they hold that will help them eventually achieve their goals. The levels of leaves represent where they want to see themselves in 2, 5, and 10 years. The clouds represent what they will need to achieve their goals, and the lightning bolt represents the obstacles and challenges they will run into while they are living their life and trying to achieve their goals. I did a sample before my session to show them an example (scaffolding and examples—YAY!) and it was even difficult for me to think of my skills, what I possess, and then where I want to be in the future. What surprised me most was how well the campers did with this. The system here is not really built on hypotheticals and imagination. Even though I know everyone has the ability to dream and have goals, I wasn’t sure whether they would be able to think that abstractly- mostly because I wasn’t able to. They surprised me like always, and did an amazing job with this activity. I learned a lot about the students, like one of my girls wants to be an artist, my boy wants to be a policeman or a soldier, one of the other boys wants to study political science and psychology and likes to read poetry, another boy wants to be dating the same girl in the next 2 and 5 years and be married to her in 10 years, and one of my girls wants to work but also have a kid. Here when you ask people want they want to be “when they grow up”, almost everyone answers out loud doctor or engineer because that’s the acceptable answer, but when they were drawing and answering for themselves, they put their true desires and goals. And that was the coolest thing to see.

“I Am A Strong Woman”

This is another one that was part of the GAD Manual, and so it was designed for women, however we changed it to men and women because we had a co-ed camp. They talked about challenges of growing up in Ethiopia as a girl and a boy. They listed things such as rape, harassment, needing to be strong, family responsibility, early marriage, health problems with pregnancy and birth, and other things that I can see are problems, but was interesting to see what they listed as their challenges. Jessie then wrote their challenges on a piñata she made that was decorated like a soccer ball. After that, they talked about being a strong person- being a strong woman or man and what that means to them. We had them stand up if they thought they were a strong man or woman. They then had to say the sentence “I am a strong man/woman because…” and give a reason why they believe they are strong. They all generally listed things about helping their community, helping their family, not listening to what others say about/to them, volunteering, being a leader, or doing what they want to do. One of my girls even said she would crush anyone who was not nice to her (complete with a karate chop hand signal). After all the students went we went outside the classroom and bashed the piñata with the challenges written on it to represent destroying the obstacles in their way, and that they have the power to change their own lives.

Most everyone brought students who are considered “gobez” or very good students. Most were probably the top 1 or 2 in their classes, if not in their entire grades and schools. Most can speak English very well, and a lot already have that self confidence that we were trying to bring out more. Some were from villages, other live in the city. A lot of the campers will end up at university (hopefully!) and will do well for themselves. Not everyone will, but I have a feeling we picked the kids that will do “well” in life. What’s hard is that this camp should be held for every student I have. The self-esteem building, goals, health, and gender roles are ideas and sessions that every one of my students should be exposed to, and I wish I was able to give them that opportunity. I am very much into female empowerment and gender equality, so this camp was an interesting opportunity to delve into some female empowerment and gender equality with both males and females. A lot of people focus on females when wanting to deal with gender issues, and that’s a big part of it—getting girls to realize they have power to change society. However, males are also a big part because their attitudes and actions have to change as well. You can’t have gender equality without both men and women. So although Camp GLOW is called Girls Leading Our World, this week was more about bringing up both men and women to believe they are equal and just as able to be strong, successful, healthy, and confident and to help everyone around them become that way as well, no matter their life circumstances or gender.

I sometimes feel that I’m not really helping over here (reference some of my other blogs), but during Camp GLOW I really felt like I was helping these students, both those in my own town and those from others find their potential, confidence, and strength. Hopefully they will come back to site and show others what they learned through their actions and words. Whether it’s having the boys make buna, the girls telling a man she doesn’t feel comfortable with his words, washing their hands after eating, or knowing they do have the smarts to study and pass their classes. Not everything will change, society as a whole won’t change, and their lives will probably continue the way it was before this camp. But if one girls path can become brighter, if one boy will treat his friends better, or if one student passes their classes, then I feel like I have accomplished something, and all the hardships we all go through become just a little bit less.