Pearls from Africa: LIVE from Camp Lion!

Bagonza from InMovement warming up our staff

Reporting live from Camp LION! Things are buzzing right now from the Staff room at Grace Primary School where I am co-directing Camp LION (Leaders In Our Nation) in Mbale, in eastern Uganda.

Our camp is focused on developing leaders from neighboring communities in a week-long, jam-packed camp with sessions on community organizing, youth development, HIV/AIDS awareness, public speaking and the importance of volunteering. Peace Corps volunteers have been running youth leadership camp for girls (GLOW-Girls Leading Our World) and boys (BUILD- Boys of Uganda in Leadership Development) for years now, as a way of directing reaching out to youth and giving them a safe space to discuss issues like reproductive health, sex, condom demos and HIV, as well as developing their leadership, public speaking, and self-esteem skills. Our staff and camp counselors ranges from Peace Corps Volunteers to teachers at primary schools, youth and health workers and a few members from BPU. We are also working with InMovement, a youth organisation for social change through the arts. They're known for doing amazing youth work through dance, drama, circus, poetry and art.

Our InMovement facilitators (Ife, Bagonza, Mark and Tara) helped lead our staff training to prepare for a powerhouse week of camp. We discussed and practiced facilitation skills, how to engage youth in a meaningful way, gender-equitable practices and how to make camp FUN!
Tomorrow our campers arrive from Tororo, Mbale, Soroti, Kumi districts and our camp will officially kick off! The day I'm looking forward to most is our Volunteer Day on Wednesday, where our campers will go out and do community service work in Mbale, such as tree-planting, street sweeping, and volunteering at the local hospital and orphanage. I'll keep everyone posted!

As for Peace Corps' Blog It Home contest, tomorrow is the last day to vote on Facebook to help my blog win the contest! Send me to DC by going to this link, and Clicking "Like". Please share the photo as well and encourage your friends to vote. Thanks!