I had seen from my Peace Corps volunteer experience in Ethiopia that camp is a near-universally appreciated phenomenon and I wanted to bring it back to Africa, but to use it in a way that promoted a social issue.
That is why I created Global Camps Africa.
Located in a mountain area outside of Johannesburg, Camp Sizanani provides education, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention and crucial life skills all wrapped up in a spirit of fun and camaraderie. Multiple times a year, hundreds of children from some of South Africa’s poorest townships hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS crisis come together for several magical days at camp to learn, to laugh, and to love again. After she and 12 of her kids had spent a week at camp, the director of a group in Limpopo province said: “Camp should be the first intervention for all our children.”
We have had over 7,000 kids at one of our camp sessions and a greater number at our after-camp Youth Clubs that meet every two weeks in their neighborhoods. We have had about 30 of our counselors be offered summer jobs in the U.S. as camp counselors and administrators; our director was awarded a Sidney J. Parnes Global Fellowship (1 of 5) from the Creative Education Foundation; one of our first campers just got her M.A. in Communication from the University of Johannesburg; we have been awarded three contracts through the U.S. Agency for International Development for training and for providing camps in South Africa.
As for what I want the world to know about my encore: “Older” is just a word that means “experienced.”