From 4th to 8th of August 2017, in cooperation with Caritas Italiana, Youth for Peace organized a summer camp for new generation of children and young people, as a part of the project Joyful life. The camp participants were children and youth from Home for children without parental care “Bjelave”, Public institution "Centar za socijalni rad BPK” Goražde, “Mala škola” Vareš, "Dom porodica" Zenica, and children from socially vulnerable families from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The camp was realized in the premises of the Franciscan classical high school in Visoko. The summer camp gathered 30 children who had the opportunity to learn and have fun at the interesting workshops prepared and realized by experienced Youth for Peace educators and volunteers from partner Caritas Pescia.
Camp was symbolically entitled "Discovering New World". After completing the first, four-year-long cycle of the project Joyful life, a new generation of children has started to discover a new world. The first encounter with children was as expected - the impression of being in a classroom disappeared as soon as educators started with creative evening program. It was the beginning of learning in a creative and fun way. The summer camp included various topics. The primary goal was getting to know children so the first day of the camp went on through funny workshops on identity. Children got a chance to get to know each other but also their educators. From the things, to the people they love, their cities, hobbies and dreams, trainers have learned a lot and set a good foundation for developing the program with this new generation.
Apart from getting to know the children, the focus was on learning about children's rights and responsibilities. Very often children are only superficial acquainted with this term, mostly through formal education. The essence of rights and responsibilities remains in the shadow of the ways of its violation. However, through various quizzes, debates, creative individual and group work, YfP trainers provided them with the groundwork for the most important - how to demand their rights. In addition to the educational themes, evening programs had entertaining character; a chance for educators to transform regular premises to completely new world. From the tribes of Africa and Morocco, to the warm Spain and cold Russia, station work “The trip around the world” took children in various parts of planet Earth and gave them a fresh view on the world.
YfP looks forward to the following camps with the new generation of Joyful life project participants.
