Camp Diary

This Camp Diary is taken from the nomination form that Portia Dlamini submitted.

Orchard Camp is a part of the C4L campus designed for camp activities and team building exercises. It creates the conditions for young people to get together and discuss life issues and find solutions to what they struggle with as individuals.

Every year we conduct 4 psychosocial support camps for OVC from over 30 schools in 8 different Lowveld communities. With the aim of changing and improving young lives, we focus on dealing with psychological issues they face, but not to the exclusion of other lifeskills. The impact on the young people targeted has been tangible  these resilience-building camps have changed their lives completely by teaching them how to cope with relevant issues.

The future lies in the hands of young people like these, so working with them and involving them in nurturing and motivating each other for life purposes is the way to keep them in on the right track.

Campers receive counseling from their own peers, who we train for this and we do referrals to GRIP, Child Welfare, and Department of Social Development on issues that need more professional help.

The main training centre is used between camping seasons to train youth leaders. They are prepared for the camps through on-going training, so when campers arrive for, there is a structured programme. In fact, for each 50-camper event, there are 25 peer counselors who stay out in tents with them. But the training centre means that a back-up team of resource people is ever present as care for the caregivers. Youth from Lowveld communities take charge and help other young people - within an enabling campus environment.

This has motivated a number of government agencies and NGOs to support Orchard Camp by utilizing it for their own events as well. Those mentioned above, as well as Hands at Work and Scouts, have used the facility. Other actors have adopted the way we run camps and thus help other OVC beyond the reach of C4Ls own programming.

This is a facility with a well-structured camp programme  with back-up and training from key resource people.