Mentors In The House
It is Saturday and Activate Youth Camp 2015 themed “the Awakening” is going to be like never before. For a start, we had to do some unpacking, fixing and bonding until the doors opened for volunteers and staff training with two training sessions. The first was “Listening” by Champ Ruth Goma to prepare the volunteers in the art and act of listening. The second session was a combo of knowledge on child protection rights/policy and inspiration for volunteers.
On Listening, Champ Ruth defined it as a process of paying rapt attention to an individual; it also involves receiving and constructing what is verbal and non-verbal to make right judgment. Highlighting the principles of listening she stated:
- Be quiet
- Prepare yourself to listen
- Put your speakers at ease
- Remove distractions
- Empathise and try to understand the other person’s stand point
- Avoid prejudice
- Listen to the tone
- Be patient
- Listen for ideas
- Wait and watch for action
In rounding, volunteers and staff were urged to debunk common listening misconceptions which are:
- It is difficult to listen
- I am a natural listener
- Intelligent people listen more
- Hearing is the same as listening
- Gender affects listening.
The atmosphere was on high when Champ Ruth rounded her session and assured the barriers to effective listening can be eliminated one child at a time if we listen more, not multi-task or pre-occupied with other thoughts and dedicate our time to the kids.
In the second session, Taiwo Akinlami (a Child Protection specialist) enlightened the volunteers on the need to understand child protection policies and protecting the children against Physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional abuse through sharing life stories. He defined a child as “a person between the ages of 0-18 or an adult who acts as a child”. The child is protected under four rings which are:
- The family
- The community (where volunteers and staff are categorized)
- The state
- The international community
He summarised the meaning of CHILDREN to mean:
C – Care
H – Heritage
I – Individuality
L – Leadership
D – Delightful
R – Respectful
E – Engage
N – Now
The time is NOW to better the life of the child, build their capacity and healing will come. The best gift by parents is not in giving birth but in the training and raising the child because the future of humanity is in their hands. To validate this, a child protection Code of Conduct for Activate Youth Camp 2015 was developed.
At night, Mentors brainstormed on a fun reward system for campers in various teams to eliminate positions and make competitions friendly.
Get ready all, this is a new special: ACTIVATE YOUTH CAMP SOCIAL MEDIA PARTY on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to tell the world what we do and how we do it. Remember the hash tags for our social media channels are -#ActvateYouthCamp #AYC15 #theAwakening and the official hash tag for twitter is #ActivateYouthCamp.
Get ready to awake the giants in the kids and let the world connect to the vision
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