Waves For Change Holiday Camps

Waves For Change Holiday Camps – Bong’s Report

After a year of life skills training and after-school workshops the stage was finally set, the coaches and participants of Waves for Change were finally ready to end the year with a bang! I included, we were all getting ourselves excited for the 6 day camp where we could exhibit what we had learnt throughout the year to young adults from the surrounding peninsula. The six day camp was going to take place on our backdoor, Muizenberg beach.

I doubt there has ever been an event like this in the peninsula, 60 kids from more than 12 diverse communities all coming together for 6 days worth of fun activities learning life skills, Hiv awareness, drug awareness and most importantly becoming surfers who are riding and enjoying the stoke with Waves for Change.

I have never had it so good, there was just so much happening and it is quite tricky not to leave anything out. It is hard to put a camp experience into mere words alone; one has to be there and experience all the fun for yourself. The jokes, the games and the conversations we had when the campers had burning questions about how to surf like Apish.

The camp was split into two 3-day sessions which brought two very diverse groups of youngsters to Muizenberg. It was great seeing these kids bringing lots of energy and the weather played along ensuring that the surf was a very refreshing feeling for the kids. In addition, the facilitators brought a very special spark and ensured that there were no injuries besides a few sun burns compliments of the southern sun.

The hardest part of the camp was saying goodbye to my newly made friends. Over the past three days, we went from complete strangers to best friends thanks to our safe spaces at the beach. We got to know everything about each other and especially the various struggles that we all came from. The beach played a pivotal role in allowing us to share our struggles, from drug addict brothers, alcoholic mothers to corrupt community leaders it all came out. However with that said, I feel that my friends are now more ready to go back home and make a difference in their homes and communities and leading by example.

With support from the city we will however meet again and thanks to social media we can continue communicating with each other on a daily basis. The camp ensured that more youngsters are going be able to make informed decisions and also they are definitely Agents of Change. It would be therefore much better to end with the response I got from a friend I met at the camp. Maxine Carla Fouche wrote via twitter ‘ I had fun on camp and I am looking forward to teaching my friends what I learnt’.

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