GAD Camp

February 1st

Peace Corps Panama has a Gender And Development (GAD) group made up of current volunteers.  This group is responsible for helping to teach Panamanian youths and adults about HIV/AIDS and other STIs, LBGT issues, puberity, pregnancy, and drugs and alcohol among other topics.  GAD plans events throughout the country, creates training materials for Peace Corps volunteers and Panamanian Agencies, and provides grants to volunteers that are working on projects related to these topics.  One of GAD’s largest responsibilities is to host GAD youth camp.  Every volunteer can pick two youths (ages 12-17) that they view as current or up and coming community leaders to apply to attend the camp.  Both of the kids from Piedras Gordas, Castalia (14 yrs. Old) and Rául (13 yrs. Old) were accepted and I was lucky enough to be picked as a camp counsler.

Due to the popularity of GAD Camp there were two camps held this year, my campers and I attended GAD Camp East.  Campers came to GAD Camp East from the provinces of the Darien, Panamá Este, Panamá Oeste, Coclé, Herrera, and Las Camarcas on the eastern side of the country.  For many of the campers this was there first time outside of their communities, and for the majority of them this was the first time spending a week away from their families. 

I was the only facilitator that lives in Coclé so it was my responsibility to travel with the eight campers in Coclé from Penonome to Hogar Javier in Panamá Oeste.  Unfortunately I couldn’t keep my eyes open on the bus ride.  After half an hour on the bus with the kids I began to fall asleep,  after a few minutes I was jerked awake and tried with all my power to keep my eyes open. Inevitably I failed to keep my eyes open and I fell back asleep.  This cycle continued itself for about an hour until a camper named Maudy (12 yrs. Old) woke me up and told me I was snoring.  I asked her if she could pinch me everytime I was falling asleep, so for the final hour of the trip she would pinch me every couple of minutes when she saw my eyes starting to close. After a couple of hours and around 20 pinches we managed to arrive at the camp grounds.

The first evening afternoon and evening was dedicated to getting the campers settled in, splitting into four teams (yellow, blue,  orange, and pink) and playing a number of ice breakers.  My favorite actvity activity from the first evening was a competition where we had to pass an orange to every member of the team without using our hands, our team (the blue team) lost but all the kids had a lot of fun.  The next morning we all got up at 6:30 am to do yoga before breakfast.  I don’t think any of the kids had ever done yoga and they all thought it was pretty strange at first, but by the end of class they all seemed to enjoy it.  In fact many of the campers approached us throughout the camp because they were interested in learning more yoga poses.  The themes of the activities centered on building self-esteem, teen pregnancy, puberty, exploring various career tracts, personal values, HIV/AIDS and other STI’s, drugs and alcohol, decision making, writing resumes and community project planning.   Although a lot of these themes are pretty serious the camp leaders did an excellent job of planning the sessions so that were taught in an easy to understand, fun, and dynamic manner.  There were also a number of Panamanian guest speakers that help reach the kids in a way that none of the Peace Corps volunteers could.

I was responsible for co-facilitating a session on brain functions and decision making.  My co-facilitator and explained the differences between the when we use the Amygdala (which is responsible for reactions, almost all animals brains have these) versus the Prefrontal Cortex (which is unique to humans and is used to plan and think ahead).  We then acted out various socio-dramas to help explain how both of these parts of our brains may react in various situations.  Afterward we handed out a number of verbs to each team and they had to decide if that action required using the Prefrontal Cortex or the Amygdala.  The final verb we put up was sex, which opened up the floor to discussing how sex is wonderful and natural but also something that requires the proper planning and precautions.  For the final activity of the session we explained the POCA model which is a tool that allows the user to take a Problem, weigh their Options and view the Consequences of each option, and then choose the proper Action.  Using the POCA model each team had to decide which of the three options they wanted to take: Option 1: winning a guarunteed star (point for their team), Option 2: Pick Box A (they did know the content of the box but it held 2 stars) or Option 3: Pick Box B (they did not know the content of the box but it contained 0 stars).  All of the teams chose Option 1 or 3.  The activity helped the kids learn how to use the POCA tool and it also taught them how difficult it can be to make a smart decision when you are under-informed.

On the afternoon of the last full day we hosted an “Olympic Games”  which consisted of tug-of-war, trivia, a shoe toss, “chicken fights,” a penalty kick shootout, and a relay race.  The tug of war destroyed the kids hands, and there were erronious accounts that I was involved in favortism during the penalty kick shootout, but I think all the kids really enjoyed the competition.  In the end our team, the blue team, won both the Olympics and the week long “stars” competition.  Which meant that our kids had first pick of the prizes that each camper recieved. 

On the last night we showed the campers a slide show of the photos we had taken throughout camp, and then there was a talent show.   There were various skits put on by the campers, lucha libre (Panamanian style WWF fighting), counslers acting out a day in the life of GAD camp, a dance party, and traditional Latino and Embera (indigenous Panamanian group) dances.  In Panama there is a lot of descrimination against the indigenous tribes by latino Panamanians, so it made me very happy to see the Latino kids ask the Embera campers to give them traditional Embera “tattoos,” and teach them Embera dances.  During the talent show the Embera campers invited the Latino campers to join in their dance performance, and then one of the Latino campers encouraged other Latino kids to participate in the dance.  It made me so happy to see the kids take such a strong interest in learning about one another’s culture.

The whole camp was huge success; countless times I heard campers discussing things they learned at the camp and their excitement to bring these new skills and the information back to their communities.  The last night it was very obvious how much the kids enjoyed the camp when they had a huge water fight and refused to go to bed until close to 1 am.  Many of the campers even woke up a 4am to say goodbye to their friends that had to travel back to the Darien. My favorite part was watching kids that didn’t say a word at the beginning of camp come out of their shells over the course of the week.  By the end they running around, laughing, and being mischievous with their new friends.  Being involved with GAD camp is one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had since joining the Peace Corps.

To check out the slide show go to: http://vimeo.com/57813660