Hopes Shines Camp #2

Love grows where hope shines

Hope Shines volunteers and translators

I've talked a good bit about the new friends I've met here who are volunteering with an organization called Hope Shines. On Sunday night they mentioned that they were going to be short one girl counselor on Monday, and since Monday was a holiday for my office, I offered to volunteer. The last time I volunteered with them was tons of fun, so I was really looking forward to getting to go again!

The picture to the left shows all of the volunteers for this camp as well as our translators. Hope Shines hires university students who are on a scholarship called Generation Rwanda to be translators during the camps. Students who get this scholarship are orphans themselves and are working very hard to get their degrees in subjects such as engineering and finance. I've heard great things about Generation Rwanda; in fact, my co-worker Sushant and his wife teach a public speaking course for them.

Anyway, Monday was the first day of Hope Shines' second camp. The week in-between the first and second camps had consisted of Hope Shines volunteers giving physicals to all of the children because health check-ups are not given on a regular basis here. Rather, most healthcare is reactive instead of proactive - at least as it pertains to the orphanages I've heard about.

True American vehicle: won't even fit in the driveway!

When the Hope Shines group comes to these orphanages, they truly try to provide everything they can - physicals, shoes (Croc's donated over 200 shoes!), meals, some clothes, and of course everything required for the camp including sports equipment and crafts. I may have mentioned that the U.S. Marines who guard the embassy here volunteer at the camp as well. Since we had so much equipment to bring, they offered to drive over their larger-than-life Suburban to load everything up. I took a picture because we all thought it was funny that there is no doubt which embassy this vehicle came from! You can see that the Suburban wouldn't have even been able to park in the parking lot of our guest house :)

When we arrived on Monday morning, it was clear that the kids at these orphanages look forward to this camp every year, and Hope Shines definitely makes an impression. When we arrived, the first thing they did was make us sit down so they could do a welcome performance. They talked about how much Hope Shines has helped them grow and be confident in themselves and then the girls performed the dance that they'd learned at last year's camp (and still remembered!)

The Peace and Love team

Team 4:  Peace and Love
This camp had a broader age range than the other one, and there were children from one and a half years old up to twenty years old. Since male/female mentoring is an important part of the camp, the boys and girls separated into different activities:  the boys started with sports and the girls started with dance. Thank goodness all of those years of teaching dance at Encore camp back to me :) Within the group of girls, four teams were made that included a good cross-section of younger and older children. I was put in charge of team 4, who named themselves "Peace and Love."

Everyone with their masks!

The day flew by as we had a lineup of fun activities. We went around a circle making up dances to each other's names, talked about what the girls liked about Rwanda and then about their own hobbies, created a make-believe country for our team, decorated a flag for that country, learned a group dance, and then decorated masks and put on a short play for the boys. I'd like to point-out that when asked what they loved about Rwanda, several girls said they loved "that we are at Peace." As for hobbies, almost everyone in my group loves to dance and some of the girls enjoy soccer and basketball too.


It was so fun to be around all of that energy!! Hope Shines really is a great organization and I encourage you to check-out their website: www.hopeshines.net.

Tessia and me with our masks

Have a great week!

Always,
Meredith