This is my second week with Educo Africa. Last weekend I’ve been at a course in the mountains. It was a group of children between 8 – 12 years old from Mitchells Plain a Township in Cape Town. It was a camp for them at the end of their school year.
It was amazing what has happened during this weekend. At the beginning the children has been very shy, but during the weekend they “blossomed”.
We provided several activities, for example rock climbing, swimming, a nature hike and creative arts.
The natural hiking impresses me in a special way. The participants has been invited to be aware of what they hear and what they can see in the nature. Than we debriefed the findings and compared it with the noises they hear in Mitchells Plain and the things they see at home. The children found out that nature is quiet and in the town there are many noises.
Then the participants were given cards with several pictures of animals and plants and they had to find out how these things are connected, for example the monkey lives in the tree or the spider eats the fly. They get a string, to throw it to each other. At least we had a web which showed us, that everything is connected. We put a bottle of water on the web as a metaphor for the human beings. We are living on this connection of the environment. If one string breaks, all the others are affected.
On the last day we gave the participants space to debrief their experiences. We split them into small groups and encouraged them to speak about their personal highlights. After that we came all together. They get a candle with a candle holder which they made with clay before. Then they took it and told the whole group about their personal highlight.
This has been a very good closure. The children were so happy and thankful. Even the accompanying adults were filled with enthusiasm!
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