GLOW Camp Awesomeness!!

Well, after months and months of planning, the Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Camp has finally come and gone. For those of you who may not have heard about this camp before, I'll briefly describe it for you. A GLOW Camp is a girls' empowerment camp; a Peace Corps event that was started by a Romanian Volunteer and has now reached 61 Peace Corps countries around the world. The camps usually focus on themes of gender equality, female empowerment, and/or English learning. This camp that Ali and I had been planning since November contained 5 themes: leadership, environmental stewardship, alternative livelihood skills, college and careers, and women's health. We invited successful females from the community to come as guest speakers to share their theme-related skills and give advice to our girls. We had 30 participants, 15 from Siaton (my site), 14 from Zamboanguita (Ali's site), and 1 from Valencia (another Volunteer's site, filling a last-minute cancellation).

Looking back over the camp, the 4 days seemed to take all of 10 minutes, and it was a complete success! The girls loved the camp, we facilitators loved the camp, the themes were well delivered, and we got through the whole thing without any major issues. No injuries, no sickness, no quarrels, no disciplinarian issues. The girls met new friends and strengthened bonds with pre-existing friends as well. At the end of the camp we went over anonymous comments the girls had left in our “Honesty Box” and most of them were asking if we'd have another camp next summer because they had so much fun at this one; the highest complement they could have paid us! This has probably been the highlight of my service and I'm thrilled it went so well!

To go over the numbers of the camp:

4 Days and 3 Nights

30 Participants

3 Organizers (Ali and me, then Pol, our local counterpart)

7 Assistant Facilitators

16 Guest Speakers

23 Sessions/Activities

21 Named Donors (Unknown Anonymous)

0 Problems

1 Awesome Camp!

Our venue was the Siit Arboretum, located just between Ali's and my site. It was secluded, completely natural, and spacious, making it a perfect location for our environmentally-focused, tent-sleeping camp.

To give you an idea of how awesome the camp was, I'll briefly go over the itinerary in my favorite bullet-point fashion:

Wednesday:

• Arrive at the venue by 9am.
• Split into pre-arranged groups that forced the girls to meet all new people.
• Name tag making and ice breaker games
• Rules and Expectations of both facilitators and campers
• Lunch
• Guest speaker discussing women's health and getting the girls used to talking about their bodies
• Guest speakers discussing healthy relationships and stressing the importance of equality in relationships
• Tour of the Arboretum with plenty of selfie/picture taking
• Dinner
• Bonfire!!! (and debriefing)
• Bed

Thursday

• Morning yoga session
• Breakfast
• Guest speakers showing the girls how to make wallets out of wrappers (craft time)
• Additional trash crafts from pop bottles introduced (bracelets, beads, vases)
• Lunch
• Guest speakers discussing marine conservation and the importance of our environment
• Guest speaker discussing biodiversity of the Philippines and its importance
• Nature exploration/appreciation (the girls were sent out to explore the garden on their own and appreciate the beauty of nature)
• Free time (volleyball was a popular free time activity)
• Preliminary discussion on how to share these lessons with classmates back at school
• Dinner
• Movie Night!! Whale Rider, the story of a New Zealand native girl who was destined to be the next leader of her tribe and had to overcome the prejudices of her being a female in order to prove herself to her community
• Bed

Friday

• Optional yoga or volleyball
• Breakfast
• Tie-dye and candle making rotation!!
• Guest speaker activity on self-esteem building
• Lunch
• Guest speakers discussion on college (how to choose a college, choosing a course, differences between high school and college) from current college students and an administrator
• Free Time (volleyball again)
• Planning strategies in small groups to bring information back to schools
• Dinner
• Guest speaker on bioluminescence followed by light painting in the dark!
• Bonfire with s'mores!!! (discussion of favorite parts of the camp and lessons learned)
• Bed

Saturday

• Breakfast
• Packing
• Presentation of the different small group strategies to share information with schools (women's health was a very popular lesson to share with their classmates)
• Group Pictures!
• Certificate hand-outs
• Clean-up/Tie-dye rinsing
• Lunch
• Leave venue
• Sleep for all eternity

As you can see, our days were very long and completely filled with activities. We were crunched for time at every minute but somehow made it work. The night after the camp I slept for 11 hours and still had a 3 hour nap the next day. It was exhausting but so much fun!! Like I said before, I think this was the best part of my service. A lot of work went into planning this, but it all paid off in the end. At the beginning of the camp, one group of girls expressed their hope that this camp wouldn't be boring like other ones they had attended, and I think we definitely succeeded in that!

Lastly, a THANK YOU again to all who donated to help fund this project! We couldn't have done it without you!!

Group Picture!!! Sadly not all our facilitators were available for this picture.

I have plenty of more pictures that I'll try to get up eventually, but for now, this is it. Blame my slow internet.