We have recently completed another session of our Summer Youth Peace Camps.
Our first session, Panther Camp, traveled to Atlanta to participate in the US Social Forum. We stayed at the Atlanta Dojo with Brother Utsumi and Sister Denise who very generously shared their beautiful home and Temple with all 15 of us who made the trip. We were lucky to also have Bruce Gagnon and Mary Beth Sullivan among the other guests with us for the duration of our stay. We would like to thank everyone who supported our efforts to take our 15 to 18 year old campers to this inspiring event in Atlanta. To learn more about the US Social Forum, go to their web site.
Just last Saturday we completed the second week of Peace Camps with our Manatee Campers, ages 10 to 14. We had a wonderful week of activities including a Native American ceremony to bless the camp and land, a presentation with live reptiles from 5 continents around the globe, a discussion of Deep Ecology followed by a Council of All Beings in a tee-pee as well as workshops on team building, healthy relationships, and bullying. We traveled to a local lake for a swim and canoing, the Florida Museum of Natural History, and a local park for more swimming and fun at the skateboard park. We watched a challenging film related to the impact of war on children in Iraq, Turtles Can Fly, and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. We even had a workshop on clowing and juggling to round out our recreation and entertainment skills. We worked together as a community to develop agreements on behavior during camp, chore schedules and meal prep. As service to the land, we improved both the boys and the girls sleeping tents. Fire ants on the land continued to assert themselves and were a challenge to manage but we did the best we could. Rain and lightening, as always, was another important ingredient in our camp experience and played havoc with our attemps to maintain a planned schedule of activities. Friday ended with a campfire, drumming, a talent show, and then a very somber circle to deal with the consequences of breaking camp agreements that included a brief introduction to the concept of restorative justice to bring healing to a community.
It is quiet again at the Teaching Farm but we hold onto the memories we made during the 2007 Peace Camps and look forward to another season in 2008. Perhaps you can join us as a camper, a counselor, a presenter, or one of the many volunteers who serve in a support role. Please contact us at 352-468-3295 if you have ideas or suggestions for making next year's camps a wonderful experience for our campers and a powerful tool for peace and justice education for our young people.
This blog page is a wonderful way to let us all get a feel for what/how FCPJ is doing; congratulations!
Re the 2007 Peace Camps, it would be interesting to learn how many participants were in each, and how the number compares to previous years.
Posted by: Pat Murphy | August 19, 2007 at 10:10 AM
This blog page is a wonderful way to let us all get a feel for what/how FCPJ is doing; congratulations!
Re the 2007 Peace Camps, it would be interesting to learn how many participants were in each, and how the number compares to previous years.
Posted by: Pat Murphy | August 19, 2007 at 10:11 AM