Winter Leadership Camp

On Wednesday and Thursday 11^th – 12^th January 2012 there was a leadership camp held by Velammal Vidyalaya School and conducted by I.N.D.I.A Trust. The camp was addressed for 4^th grade to 9^th grade students, there was around 180 students of Velammal Vidyalaya school attended the camp. This leadership camp was conducted in Velammal International School.

The camp started at 9.00 am, opened with prayer song, opening speech that given by the principal of Velammal Vidyalaya School, lighting of candles and opening speech from Mr. Vijaya Kumar from I.N.D.I.A Trust that contained about leadership, the differentiation of leadership for every stage of ages, how to turn from ordinary people in to a leader. There are four steps which are make mistakes, understanding mistakes, correcting mistakes and practice. Then the students were asked about what are the qualities of a leader, the students were very enthusiastic to answer the question, they could mention a lot of qualities that a leader should have. After that some video clips were played, the first was Shaolin clip, the second was poor vs. rich video, the third was Lead India video and the last was good to great video. Then the students were asked to mention the leaders that they have known, they mentioned Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Jawaharlal Nehru but unexpectedly a girl raised her hand and said that she was the leader. 

The event continued with introducing the facilitators and mentors that would be involved during the camp, and then the mentors met their students group and the groups made their group name and also the students of each group were given the task to perform an on the spot talent show, they performed according to the order of the lottery. After having their juice breaks, one by one the groups were performing their talent show, they were given five minutes. It was surprising because although they were only given five minutes to prepare a performance of a five minutes talent show, they could perform very well. They were performing yoga, karate, dancing from a traditional to break dancing, singing, aerobics, mimicry, and many more. Their talents were amazing.

The next activity was also interesting, movie time! The movie was How to Train your Dragon, the students enjoyed the movie so much and they were competing to answer the movie quizzes afterwards. The time to determine their endurance, balance and also strength had come, they were having the adventure games, the adventure games were consist of nine stages, the first stage was balance walk,  the second stage was commando bridge, the students had to walk between two strains of hanging rope, in order to complete the stage they need to have a good body balance, the third stage was rope climbing, the fourth was zigzag walk, they had to walk in zigzag pattern at particular height, next there was Tarzan jump, the students had to swing on a rope like Tarzan, the sixth stage was water transfer, every team member had to make a line and then transfer the water with their hands from one member to other member, the water should still be exist until the last member, Fitting in was the other stage that they had to face, in this stage there was some area drawn on the ground, and all the team member must fit in that area, group jump was the eighth stage, all team members must jump together through a long skipping rope and the last but still interesting stage was stick walking, the students should walk using a stilts, but no one was able to use the stilts. Everyone was having fun and doing the games wholeheartedly. But unfortunately in the middle of having the adventure games, rain was falling suddenly, so all the students, mentors and facilitators were moving in to the indoor stadium.

Rain couldn’t erase the fun and the spirit, after having some snacks the activity was continued in the indoor stadium, the game called arranging card, according to its name the game was to arrange the cards following the pattern that had been given before, they had to arrange it as soon as possible, during this game we could see who was leading, who was just seeing their friends and did nothing. Their sound was echoing everywhere when they were jumping and shouting happily since they could do the game successfully. Not only the students that having the games, after the arranging cards game, then came the time for the mentors, they were asked to mention their mentee one by one, it turned out that only two mentors could mention all of their mentees. Next was back to the students who were playing, the game was called memorizing, to play this game each group would come in to a room, there was thirty things on the table, and they had thirty seconds to memorize all the things, after thirty second they should write on a piece of paper what were the things on the table. Discussing and preparing for the cultural night was all the students did after the game, for the cultural night they had been given a particular theme for each group, the big theme was positive changes, and the groups should make a performance based on that theme.

The sky had turned dark, the night had come, and the students, teachers, mentors and facilitators all gathered formed a big circle, in the middle of the circle a campfire was burning. They were all dancing and singing along the songs happily. The tiredness after singing and dancing was paid by the delicious food that had been waiting, the dinner was taken place alongside the swimming pool.

Cultural night, the groups were performing one by one in order of the lottery. Most the groups put mini dramas that also consist of yoga, dancing and singing. Although it was just similar with what they had performed in the talent show, but the cultural night seemed to be more organized, and the students were dressed nicely with many costumes, and certainly it had more meaning and good messages. All groups had performed, the night got deeper, couldn’t avoid that the whole body was full of tiredness, time to sleep and recharged the energy.

Next day, all the students already arrived before 6 am in the field, in order to keep the body healthy, so they started the day with jogging, playing Simon says game, and in-out pond game. These games were meant to increase their alert and focus, because they needed to listen carefully, think and move fast. After that it was a very special time because we’re celebrating the Pongal, so everyone changed their clothes to the special costume, they dressed up as beautiful as possible, there were some students wearing the traditional costumes and standing in the middle of the circle, then everyone were singing and dancing along to the music while a jar of pongal were being cooked, particular pattern was drawn on the ground and a place to worship the God had been built, there was also a crow cart. The Pongal had cooked, we ate that together on a bowl made of leaves, and it tasted sweet. So, happy Pongal!

Pongal celebration had over, everyone change their costumes to the daily clothes, breakfast had been prepared to recharge the energy, and everyone ate their breakfast leisurely. The sun was shining really brightly, but it didn’t make the spirits of the students decrease, they were still enthusiast to face the next activity of the camp, and it was tug of war. The tug of war was won by group 7 for boys and group 10 for girls. Not only the students enjoying the tug of war so much, teachers were also involved, recalled their childhood. 

The juice and biscuits brought some refreshment, after that the treasure hunt game began. Arlun mam gave the clue and then three members of each group should follow the clue to find the treasure location, there are around 7 clues that given. The winner of this game was group 7. Although after that all the students keep telling that group 7 was cheating.

Thereupon the activity called individual development plan, the students were given a questioner, this session was delivered by Mr. Vijaya Kumar, in this session the students were asked to mention the major problems of India. The students were competing to mention the problems so they could stand in the front, the students that were standing in the front then asked to analyze that major problem of India, and all the students were asked to think of the problems solving and motivated to be somebody who could solve the problems of India. They mentioned the major problems of India such as education, poverty, corruption, poor facility, malnutrition, natural disaster, black money, unemployment, lack of food, no unity, cast system, terrorism and so on.

After lunch, the students were asked to leave the auditorium because it was parents session, the students were completing their tasks the questioner, the pot and the family tree. The parent’s session also conducted by Mr. Vijaya Kumar, the main purpose of this session was to open the parent’s mind to educate their children better and to develop the youth for a better India.

The winter leadership camp was ended by the submission of certificates, medals, trophies, and prizes, for all the students, mentors, winners and the best performer of each group. The slide show of photos taken during the camp was shown to the parents. The sun was preparing to set, all the students back with their family and went home with a brand new spirit. The camp ended successfully, leaving memorable marks for the participants and the facilitators.

buat gue sendiri camp ini seruuu banget, karena gw kan suka anak-anak jadi camp ini sebgai refreshment dari kerjaan di kantor tiap hari dari pagi ampe sore. gue juga berasa jadi artis disana, karena gw tampak berbeda dari mereka, jadi anak-anak itu suka mendekati gue, nanyain darimana, namanya siapa, bahkan minta tanda tangan dan foto bareng, bahkan mereka berlomba-lomba buat deket sama gue, hihihi. Gue diajakin gabung pas campfire, joget-joget pas Pongal, bahkan guru-gurunya juga ngajak gue. pas gw maju buat ngambil sertifikat juga pada tepok tangan kenceng banget, aah jadi terharu. Oiya disini gue deket sama beberapa anak terutama Hari Sree, kemana-mana gw selalu sama dia, dia cerita banyak soal India, soal keluarganya, soal upacara Pongal bahkan ngajarin gw beberapa bahasa tamil. pas mau pulang gw pelukan sama dia, terus dia bilang "i"m gonna miss you" aaah gw jadi pengen nangis karena dianya juga berkaca-kaca. Terus di perjalanan pulang juga gw jadi deket sama mentor2nya yang hampir sebaya lah ya, paling beda 3 taun hehe, bus gila banget deh itu, nyanyi-nyanyi, foto-foto, ampe ada pengakuan cinta segala hahaha. Mau camp lagiiii....