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by Judith Jenya
Six-year-old Alex from El Salvador gets off the bus at Alpine Meadows
Camp and is greeted by seventeen-year-old Alex from Russia and fifty-two-year-old
Brian from Canada, his volunteer counselors for his week at camp. The
younger Alex lost his father in a gang- related shooting in Los Angeles.
The older Alex came to the United States as a refugee from St. Petersburg
with his family at the age of ten and now lives in Los Angeles. Brian
works as a child placement worker for the courts and has come to the camp
during his summer vacation. Together — along with eleven other children,
teens, and adults — they form part of a “family” group for the duration
of the camp.
While many camps host underprivileged children during their summer sessions,
the Global Children’s Organization (GCO) organized and sponsored camp
program, Turning Neighbors Into Friends, is unique. The camp brings together
children living in Los Angeles who have suffered and been affected by
war, community violence, hatred, and intolerance — and gives them a time
to heal, feel safe, play, and dream freely. The theme of the camp is reconciliation
and nonviolence expressed in terms of community, teamwork, cooperation,
and creativity. Cooperation begins with the all-volunteer staff. Each
year about forty teens and adults ages fifteen to sixty-five come to take
care of, play with, and nurture the nearly ninety campers between the
ages of six to eleven years — all of whom attend on scholarships raised
by GCO.
Because communal violence is the number one killer of children and youth,
and California leads the nation in gang violence and gang-related deaths,
GCO believes that beginning to teach alternatives to violence at a young
age is imperative for the growth and development of children. One of the
camp mottoes is “conflict is inevitable, violence is not.”
Dealing with Conflict in a Positive Way
But how do children learn to deal with conflict in a positive way? After
providing similar camp programs overseas in the Balkans and Northern Ireland
for nine years, GCO, now based in Santa Monica, California, decided to
bring the program home and held the first camp for Los Angeles-area children
in 2001. GCO found that during their week together — sharing living space,
meals, and games with children of different races, ethnicity, places of
origin, economic status, and life experience — children have the opportunity
to explore some of the alternatives to violence and gangs that they usually
are not able to learn in their home environments. They are given the experiences
and information to make different choices than others in their families
and neighborhoods.
The children come from fourteen countries, speak a myriad of languages
— including English — and are meeting people of different cultures living
in the same city. In Los Angeles, people tend to live and interact with
people of their own national origin, religion, race, and socioeconomic
status and are generally socially isolated from others living nearby.
The Los Angeles Program
In order to provide the Turning Neighbors Into Friends camp program in
Los Angeles, we first formed a community coalition with a number of local
organizations and schools to help us find, register, and organize children
from their communities who would benefit from the program and to send
one or more volunteers to participate in the camp. The community coalition
now includes Los Angeles and Long Beach school systems, international
refugee organizations, gang intervention groups from different parts of
the city, free clinics, mosques, synagogues, churches, and the YMCA.
Volunteer staff
Creating the program and finding the volunteer staff was the second stage
of organizing. We find volunteers through the GCO Web site, media articles,
word of mouth, former volunteers, and from the community organizations.
The volunteers are the heart of the program and are comprised of 50 percent
teens and 50 percent adults.
The teens have a leadership program that runs concurrently within the
camp for three hours a day that is staffed by trained youth leaders. This
program is designed to allow the teens to debrief and share and to have
some separate activities and games. The teens — some from the same communities
as the children and some from other parts of the city and other states
— become role models for the children and often take leadership roles
in the camp. They learn to be mentors to younger children. The teens serve
as volunteers with the adults for the balance of the day.
The adult volunteers, include the camp physician, psychologist, art and
nature directors, as well as teachers, musicians, film industry people,
suburban moms, college and graduate students, former gang members turned
community activists, police and sheriff personnel on their vacation time,
and a wide range of professional and community people who have heard about
the camp and want to be of service to children. All of the volunteers
— except those from the communities from where the children come — pay
their own way and that of one child. This dedicated group makes a highly
motivated and energized staff.
Training
The camp begins with a three-day training program for all the volunteers
and teens to bond, become a team, and form the sense of community necessary
to work with, nurture, and heal this diverse group of traumatized children.
Most of the campers have never been in the outdoors or away from their
own families.
Bob Cabeza, a longtime camp director and program director of CORAL at
the Long Beach YMCA, leads the staff training and helps develop the camp
program. Carol Tanenbaum, Ph.D., talks about working with traumatized
children; the permanent staff of Alpine Meadows, the leased camp facility,
lead sessions on nature, safety, and camp procedures, and additional training
is given in working with the special needs of these children.
Through exercises that emphasize cooperation, the volunteers become teams
who can work cooperatively and with equality in cabin groups, which we
call “families.” The volunteers experience a series of games and exercises
— many of which are then replicated with the children. One exercise consists
of making a mask by decorating two sides of a paper plate — one reveals
how the child thinks he seems to the world; the other side shows how the
child appears to himself. One former gang member painted a calm landscape
for his exterior and a jagged red explosion for his interior. He said
the red represented the anger against society he used to carry inside
— anger that now is channeled into energy for transforming society. It
is that same energy the GCO hopes to demonstrate and transfer to the children
at camp.
The volunteers in each family prepare the cabin and greet the children
in their group immediately on their arrival at camp. Each family consists
of approximately eight children of the same age and gender and five or
six teens and volunteers. The nearly two to one volunteer-child ratio
means that each child has a considerable amount of personal attention
— attention that they often cannot get at home. The campers frequently
come from single parent families who are overwhelmed and disrupted by
poverty, violence, or trauma. Later on, such alienated children often
find that gangs are the one place to find the acceptance and love they
seek — camp offers them an alternative to that scenario. Children feel
so connected they often start calling their volunteer counselors, “mom”
and “dad.”
The Program
On the first day, the children learn to think of the camp as a separate
“planet” on which they have just landed — run by different rules than
the world at home and based on principles of nonviolence, cooperation,
and respect. The principles of cooperation and teamwork are evident immediately
when each “family” (group of campers and counselors) is given a raw egg.
The egg is to be with the children at all times. Various groups design
“nests” and pillows to carry the egg and name it — even boys became very
solicitous of their egg. While all of the eggs eventually crack, the process
of devising a way to care for it and then taking turns being responsible
helps to form deep bonds between the children and demonstrates the need
for them to work together, make plans, and resolve their differences calmly.
Teamwork is also the focus of the daily morning community building session
when the entire camp gathers in a large circle. Each hour and a half session
has a different theme, with exercises and games to demonstrate these themes,
and is led by the teens and the teen leadership staff. Themes of self-respect,
respect for others, trust, cooperation, tolerance, and conflict resolution
are acted in skits — first by the teens and then by the children. These
themes are echoed and reinforced throughout the day — in art and other
activities. One ongoing theme of the community-building time is for children
to own the name they want to be called and disown the names that others
have given them that they do not want — such as stupid, lazy, etc.
There are “family” group times during the day, and at night before bedtime
the children share their triumphs, hurts, and feelings that lead to tears
and anger. The children learn to open their hearts and to really listen
to others and be heard by them. This in itself is often new to them and
very powerful in moving children toward new choices. Many of the children
have internalized extraordinary violence, loss, and uncertainty — the
key to working with them successfully is to gain their trust and give
them personal attention. Listening to and encouraging children to share
their dreams and hopes helps them believe there is a future for them.
Following community building each morning and alternating every day,
half the camp goes swimming and the other has a nature outing with hiking,
exploring the forest animals, and sharing the silence found in the woods.
It is the quiet that is most unnerving to these urban children who are
used to the sirens, shouts, and noises of crowded urban life. Part of
the nature time is learning about biodiversity. The interwoven diversity
in the natural world is used as a metaphor for the diversity of Los Angeles,
the most diverse city in the United States. We expand this metaphor to
show how in the natural world, groups interact and thrive and support
each other interdependently. Being in the natural world — finding animal
prints, smelling pine needles, learning to swim and then swimming in a
lake, running in clean air, drawing and painting in the shade of pine
trees — works wonders for children who are able to find a connection between
nature and themselves.
Afternoons are spent in a wide range of activities — art, music, theater,
dance, hiking, basketball, soccer, field games, and just hanging out with
the volunteers sharing stories. Children are very interested in stories
about the lives of the volunteers such as those told to them by Alex Sanchez,
a former gang member and now a leader of Homies Unidos. Alex is a second-time
volunteer who attended with his young son for whom he is a single parent.
While swimming, many kids ask him about his tattoos and the four gunshot
wounds they can see on his body. Alex’s accounts of his past experiences
helps them open up about their own situations and the dialogue gives him
another opportunity to discuss the pitfalls of violence and gang behavior.
In arts and crafts, led by a volunteer artist from Hawaii, children are
encouraged to make things they can give to other children, as well as
keep for themselves. One girl, Celeste, made a bracelet for a volunteer
who loved it, which caused her to cry. She said that at school she had
made friendship bracelets for six girls she wanted to be her friends,
but all six had returned them — she felt friendless and alone. At camp
she had requests from her new friends for the beautiful bracelets and
she beamed as each girl accepted her friendship bracelet and gave her
a hug and a big thank you.
Art projects are done both individually and in groups and range from
mask making to painting — and are hung for others to see and admire. In
one project, each child is given a ribbon of different widths and colors
and encouraged to write or draw his or her wishes and hopes for the future
on the ribbon and to sign it. The ribbons are then woven together into
a tapestry of peace and hope that is hung in the dining room on the last
day of camp. The children are amazed to see that each of them has a part
in creating a beautiful object — multicolored and varied — and they take
great pride and ownership in the tapestry, looking hard to find their
ribbon and pointing it out to others.
Mealtime is another time for sharing, making friends, and learning about
the other cultures. Because of the Muslim children no pork is served,
and eating new foods — often new vegetables prepared by the staff of the
camp — is often a major challenge for children used to eating a particular
kind of food. Some refuse to eat at first, until they become hungry enough
and then they gingerly explore one or two new tastes and dishes.
The evening programs consist of campfires, eating s’mores, singing, storytelling,
listening to the night sounds, and seeing the bright stars. Often musicians,
astronomers, magicians, and children’s performance artists come from Los
Angeles to donate their time and talents for an evening. The final evening
program ends with a teen and child talent show/dance. Campers and staff
make costumes and decorations for this closing celebration.
Nighttime and bedtime bring up other feelings of insecurity, fear of
unfamiliar things, homesickness, and wanting to talk and get reassurance.
The GCO camp is completely unplugged — no cell phones, Game Boys, headsets,
or other ways to tune out to the rest of the world. For some children
and their parents, this is the greatest challenge in coming to camp —
not talking for a whole week. For most of the children, going to a summer
camp with unrelated people is not part of their culture, and most have
never slept overnight away from home. In the post September 11 atmosphere,
both children and parents had great trepidation. Allaying the fears of
both parents and children before camp was a great challenge. Camp staff
was always available to answer questions and calm fears that are hard
to put to rest. This was often reflected in children having a hard time
going to sleep. The numbers of volunteers sharing the cabins with the
children help ensure that each child who needs reassurance — the comfort
of someone to listen — always has a person he or she knows and trusts
available to talk or read to them.
Going home from camp brings tears and sadness that camp is ending. Each
child goes home with many mementos as well as memories, plus a handmade
journal scrapbook and address book of new friends. Throughout the year,
programs, picnics, projects, family campouts, trips to local museums and
concerts, and workshops bring the children together with their new friends
and the teen mentors and volunteers. We encourage campers to stay in touch
with their mentors and volunteers at GCO and with each other.
Life Changes
In addition to the children benefiting from personal and tangible learning
and growing experiences, the volunteers often experience life-altering
changes. Teen volunteers who come from white, middle class, privileged
neighborhoods worrying about SAT scores and college applications found
out that they share many ideas, and concerns with inner-city kids who
are just barely staying within the system, and because of this, they gained
new thoughts and possibilities for their lives. Children and volunteers
leave camp with an appreciation of what nature gives to humans — wanting
to work to preserve the fragile wilderness. Everyone also goes home with
a deeper understanding of both the joys and challenges of living peacefully
in a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that is full of
uncertainty and risk — but such great possibilities.
Originally published in the 2002 September/October
issue of Camping Magazine.
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