Camp GLOW!

A few weeks ago I participated in Camp G2LOW (Girls & Guys Leading Our World), a camp that was started by Peace Corps volunteers in Romania. It was brought to Burkina Faso last year, with two camps, and this year it spread to four!  Camp GLOW was originally started with just girl campers, (girls'/women's impowerment being one of its main themes) but here in Burkina we decided to add male campers as well. The thought behind that being that women can't really move up in the world if men don't also agree in gender equality.

 

Team building activities!



There were about 10 volunteers and 15 Burkinabe working as counselors and facilitators. Considering that summer camps as we know them don't really exist here in Burkina, it was interesting to see how the Burkinabe fit into their role. Some continued to treat the campers with more of a student/teacher relationship (which is very formal in Burkina), while others really opened up to the idea of having fun with the kids!

Volunteers all brought 4-8 kids from their villages, all from 6e or 5e (about 6th and 7th grades, though ages easily ranged from 11 to 16+).  The age range obviously made discussion very interesting, especially about sexual health and family planning.  In general, the students were chosen because they are the best and brightest in their class. But in some of the smaller villages, I would argue, older students who may have failed a year or two are more respected/looked up to in their communities and by bringing them to the camp we will hopefully be teaching some of the role models the life skills we want younger students to practice.  All in all, we had interesting discussions in most sessions.

Two of the girls, Marie-Pascale and Ines, from my 5e class in Yaho.

The kids were divided into teams, then each team was assigned a volunteer and a Burkinabe counselor.  My team named ourselves the Cobras and my co-counselor was Theodora, everyone's favorite :)  She is an elementary school teacher who went back to school after having kids.  While this is fairly common today in the US, I had never before met a Burkinabe who did that.  She was a great role model for the kids and really got into the camp atmosphere. She even wrote a song about Camp GLOW! Overall, she was just awesome.

The Cobras! (Theodora's on the left)

 Topics for the week ranged from decision making and friendship to family planning and malaria prevention. The kids really got into any lesson that had a skit to start it off.  Some of the lessons then had the students write and act out a skit on the topic given. I have to admit, I was always amazed at the creativity of the students and the spot on interpretation of adults in their lives (like the disinterest of a high up official while talking to a 'villageois" or low status level farmer).  I taught the lesson the reproductive systems (male and female) to the female students, and it was really interesting to see what kinds of questions the students had and what kind of ideas they had about what happens during all of that part of adulthood.  I also taught the lessons on friendship and self-confidence/self-esteem.

Two students (the one seated was in my group , the Cobras) presenting a skit about malaria, its prevention and treatment.

So about the third day of camp my director from Yaho came to visit.  He wanted to see how the kids were enjoying the camp and encouraged them the really think about what they were learning and how they can use all that information back in village. One really cute thing: he asked the students if there were any problems at the camp, and Jude, one of the older kids, said that Jean-Paul, a younger student, made mistakes while speaking French.  The director listened very seriously and just asked Jude if he was helping Jean-Paul and correcting his mistakes. It was adorable. (All students speak French as a 2nd or 3rd language, meaning that even a student in 6th/7th grade can make a lot of mistakes). At the end of the visit the director gave me a few dollars to buy a small present for the students. I bought the students each a bottle of coke/fanta, a very special treat for them.

My director and the students from Yaho.

At the end of the week we had a talent show and my group, the Cobras, presented a skit about a family that a child who participated in Camp GLOW. The child was able to help every member of the family with various issues because of all the informationt they learned at Camp GLOW.  It was pretty cute :) 

The last day we also broke the kids up into groups by village and asked them which aspect of the camp they thought would be the most useful in their village.  My replacement, David, happened to be in the city this weekend for his regional capital visit and was able to work the group from Yaho to work on a project they can hopefully do this next year.  As sad as it was to let him lead the group, it was also really cool to see the students I've worked with for the last year work with him and think of ideas for the community.  The oldest girl student was really stressing the importance of family planning, but as a group they thought that hand washing/hygiene was a topic they all felt comfortable talking about within the village.





As tiring and stressful as planning a weekful of activities with 120 students was, I had a really great time working the kids.  As I said, I had a great Burkinabe partner for my small group, I really really hope she's involved again next year.  I'm also really looking forward to hearing what sort of activities my kids choose to do in within the community next year.