December 8, 2012 8:30 PM—Camp BUILD

This past week I was at Camp BUILD in Kisubi, which is near Entebbe.  It was a lot of fun and a total success!  The Camp accommodated 100 boys between the ages of 12 and 15 from all over Uganda.  I participated as a staff member and I was assigned to be the town runner, so whenever we needed anything in town it was my job to go to town.  I also taught two different sessions during the week, Volcanoes and Gender Roles.  It was a lot of fun working with the boys.  It was so different than working with the girls.

During the week, the boys participated in different sessions which included both life skills and other activities.  They had sessions on nutrition, alcoholism, water and sanitation, domestic abuse, gender roles, malaria, HIV, and male and female reproductive health.  They also had a few just for fun sessions like volcanoes and bottle rockets.  Outside of sessions they had a time for activities every day as well as time for sports, where they had a football tournament throughout the week.

In addition to everything else they the kids were scheduled to do during the week they also had time for “Building Blocks”.  These were small tasks and activities they could do that would earn them a building block and whoever got the most building blocks by the end of the week got a price.

Every night they also had an evening activity.  They watched two movies, learned how to play capture the flag, had a bon fire and had a dance party.

We also had four deaf kids at the camp, so every day all the campers got a brief sign language lesson so they could learn to better communicate with their fellow campers.

On Friday, we took the boys over the GLOW so the girls and boys could participate in a series of field day activity.  This was the first time all week that I got to see my girls from my school that I sent to GLOW.

Overall, I think the boys really enjoyed the camp.  The counselors and staff also enjoyed it.  Another totally successful project!

Making Volcanoes!!

One of the deaf kids teaching sign language

 Bottle Rockets

 Building Blocks 

(Yes, the groups were named after popular music artists in Uganda)

The boys from Build and the girls from Glow doing the limbo at field day

Our Staff Members