American Corner Summer Camp Summary

July 7, 2009

The American Corner Summer Camp was a huge success for all involved. From the opening day on June 29th to the final day on July 5th students were actively engaged in fun learning activities. All the activities and workshops were conducted in English and students' English began to improve. We had community meetings every morning at 7:30 before breakfast. These meetings were well attended throughout the week by students even though they were often tired. At these community meetings we talked about what went well from the previous day and what needs to change. Almost all the feedback we got was positive. The only negative was the lack of water or hot water in the students' rooms. This was a reoccurring problem throughout the week but by the end of the week the situation had gotten better. At these community meetings we also went over the days' schedule and played a fun game. For example, one morning we played Simon Says and another morning we played musical chairs with all the students. Our goal was to wake students up and have a fun time.

After both breakfast and lunch we had a two hour workshop on various topics. We had workshops on the following topics: democracy, intercultural communication, community service, tolerance, leadership, gender equality, studying in the U.S., mutual understanding, and the Fourth of July. We split the 36 students up into three countries with 12 students in each country. All these workshops were conducted for students in their countries except for the workshop on studying in the U.S.

As as country, students had to vote for whom they wanted to be their president, speaker of the country, and fun director. Each of these elected offices had specific tasks to complete. This helped students feel more empowered in this camp. In addition, to electing students to these offices, students in each country had to create their own laws, name, religion, and flag for their country. We fostered the students' competitiveness by having an Olympic Games competition between countries, with nine different events. We included games such as, tug-o-war and a raw egg toss in this competition. Throughout the week students stayed in their pre-determined countries but counselors taught different countries every day so that students had different counselors all the time.

After the afternoon workshop we had watermelon break every day. We had the kitchen staff cut up five crisp cold watermelons so students could eat as much watermelon as they wanted. Counselors and students alike enjoyed this much needed break. Then after the break students had free time from about 3:30-6:00. Most students chose to go swimming in the reservoir during this time. It was very hot and students enjoyed getting in the water and cooling off. We had both girls and boys swimming together. Some of the girls didn't know how to swim but they used an inflatable swim ring to keep them afloat. By the end of the week two or three girls said they had learned how to swim and everyone was swimming much better. There was a little beach where the students could swim and counselors could sit and watch or join them. We never had any problems with students swimming but a few of our balls blew away on the water. During free time we also had students playing volleyball. The students loved playing volleyball and played it in their free time throughout the week.

After dinner each night we had another community meeting where we showed a slideshow of pictures from the day. A different counselor each day worked hard during free time to put together a slide show. This was a great idea because the students smiled and laughed at all the funny pictures that had been taken throughout the day. At this meeting speakers of the countries also gave a report on the days' events. We asked them for both positives and negatives and we usually got a lot more positives.

The final activity for the day was always a fun one. We watched three movies, had two discos, and went bowling with half the students one night and the other half the next night. We watched the movie "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" for fun. We watched the movies "Bend it Like Beckham" and "Island of the Blue Dolphins" to teach students about tolerance, mutual understanding, and intercultural communication etc. All of our fun activities were great but the students especially loved the bowling. Many of them especially the girls had never been bowling before so it was a lot of fun for them. We had one girl bowl 100 and it was the first time she had ever bowled! The Halloween disco was also great but the speakers were a little weak and so was the music. Therefore on our last night, Saturday night, we hired a better DJ who had better speakers. At Saturday's Hollywood disco the music was much better and everyone had a blast. The location for both discos was great. We were on an outdoor terrace overlooking the reservoir with the moon shinning bright. All the students were in attendance and wanted to keep dancing all night- it was magical. On the last night we danced from about 8:30-11:00pm. Many students stayed up and talked the whole night and then wanted to go watch the sunrise in the morning. So after about three hours of sleep on Saturday night I had 22 students knocking at my door wanting me to take them out of the building to see the sunrise. I groggily got dressed and went.

We finally got back to the American Corner at about 10:30 am Sunday July 5th. Everyone including me felt the same; we were all super tired and happy. It had been an incredible action packed week. Students just kept thanking me over and over again for organizing this camp. They said they never wanted the camp to end and that they will never forget it as long as they live.

As part of the camp we required each country to plan, present, and implement a community service project. Already this week we have had students, who participated in this camp, meeting at the American Corner to organize community clean-ups and trips to the orphanage. We want students to become empowered leaders in their community and it looks like they are on the right track. We had terrific young people attending this camp.

The biggest challenge was the changing personnel. We had one student tell us she couldn't come one day before the camp on the 28th. Luckily, we found a girl to replace her within minutes. We had two other counselors leave after two days because they had to take care of their families. Luckily, we had Masuda a U-Grad alumnus step-up and fill the void. But we were still down one counselor all week. We wanted six counselors and we only had five most of the time. The other counselors and I were all constantly busy and we appreciated all the help we could get. We are all young energetic people though so we coped fine. In short this summer camp was a huge success, and I hope that there will be more American Corner Summer Camps in the future.