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FESF Creative Caravan Summer Camp 2011
01 Aug, 2011
The best moment during the project was being able to see a smile on all those children’s faces. This is something that only a few people get back and I am truly lucky to be the one to receive that million dollar smile. - M. Salman Shahid, Volunteer
Watch the video on youtube at: youtu.be/LMVzsNNOB_Q
Family Educational Services Foundation (FESF), with the support of Future First and HSBC Education Programme, organized its 13th Annual Summer Camp—‘Creative Caravan’ frim July 12 - 23, 2011. 50 volunteers and nearly 1,000 children from diverse backgrounds participated in two weeks of cultural and educational fun.
The premise of the “‘Creative Caravan’ Summer Camp 2011” was that children can effectively develop both academic and life skills in environments beyond the class room. Thus by engaging in the arts, cultural activities, sports, and team-based games a whole new dimension of learning comes into play.
The volunteers participated in a two week Motivational Volunteer Empowerment (MOVE) program, receiving concentrated training in teaching techniques, basic child psychology, group management, as well as broader subjects relative to volunteerism and project development.
One team of volunteers worked with 150 orphan children from SOS Children’s Village, while three other teams worked with young patients at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and Fatimid Foundation. The children in each location enjoyed a variety of activities, ranging from watching a puppet show from their hospital beds, taking an arts and crafts workshop, learning dance and drama, participating in health education activities, and mastering swimming lessons. A main highlight was the exciting and educational excursions - the Planetarium, the Zoo, Karachi Port, Dreamworld and even the movies!
The hospitalized children responded very warmly to the volunteers, who used what is known as ‘play therapy’—a mixture of arts and crafts activities, games, storytelling, clowning and magic tricks designed to draw the attention of the children away from the discomfort of a hospital stay. Many of the children at Fatimid, who regularly endure hours’ long blood transfusions as part of their Thalassemia treatment, happily said that the treatment, which had seemed to take an eternity, now passed so quickly with the play therapy.
The results of the two week “Creative Caravan” were impressive, and had an amazing impact on all the participants; the volunteers who committed to weeks of demanding yet rewarding work, the hospitalized children whose stay was made brighter, and the orphan children who learned and accomplished so much. In the end, we realize that a very interesting exchange took place - the giver became the receiver, and the receiver equally a giver, and each went their way richer and fuller than when they began.
FESF and HSBC look forward to make the ‘Creative Caravan’ available to many more children, offering them the opportunity to experience learning in a unique and special way.
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