This past month I had a youth camp in my site by the name of Campamento V.A.L.O.R (acronym meaning values in Spanish). Basically to give a brief background, as Peace Corps volunteers, we typically have 2 youth camps a year as a department, one for all girls and one for all guys. The idea of the camp is to spend a weekend away from home and have a series of workshops and activities to promote various things such as leadership, values, goal-setting, and so forth. The camps are for high school aged kids, typically sophomores, juniors, and seniors. After hearing about the camps we had done in the past as a department, my community partner and I had the idea to hold a local one. In addition to my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, I found a lot of local support so I decided to hold a provincial wide camp with 40 adolescents participating from four different districts.
The camp took place in my town Jequetepeque, at a house, or more of a complex, on the outskirts of the ‘downtown’ area. The senora let us use her grounds for completely free and was very supportive of the camp in general including finding financing for all the food and supplies that we needed to run the event. She has a variety of businesses including a hydroponic lettuce farm and raises a type show horses called ‘caballos de paso’, which are a longstanding tradition in Peru.
The camp started on a Friday night and lasted till Sunday afternoon. We had projected to get in and start at 4:30 p.m. but unsurprisingly, the transportation fell through and we started a little late. During Friday night we had some activities to help break the kids into smaller groups, with the goal to get kids together from different towns and encourage them to get to know some new people. We then had a session on leadership before eating dinner which, along with all other meals, was prepared by my lovely host mother Susana.
After dinner we watched the movie, Wall-E, using the municipalities’ projector. On Saturday we woke up bright and early and I led a session on starting a small business before taking a tour of the local yogurt factory. Throughout the day we had various activities to keep the kids entertained such as a recycled products session, where my fellow Peace Corps volunteers taught the kids how to make some cool items such as bracelets, wallets, and picture frames, all out of recycled newspapers and magazines.
In the afternoon, we invited a doctor from the next town over, Pacasmayo, to come give a talk about sexual health, which is obviously something very important for kids of this age group but something that unfortunately is not taught as widely as it should be in the schools or at home here in Peru. After dinner we had a bonfire complete with s’mores, which I’m pretty sure the volunteers enjoyed just as much, if not more than the kids who had never seen such a snack before. Sunday we had some more educational sessions and also a career panel with some professionals from my town and Pacasmayo, including the mayor. It was interesting to hear their advice and the different paths some of them took to reach their ultimate positions, which I hope will have an effect on the kids as they start thinking about their options after high school. We then had our closing ceremony where the all participants received their all important certificate of completion, followed by a lot of pictures.
All in all, it was a rewarding and at times exhausting experience. I think it was a success, thanks to all the support from my community partners and fellow Peace Corps volunteers.
