The Community Vibes Summer Camp is introducing children to Barbadian culture through hands-on activities ranging from crochet and drumming to dance and jewellery making, while preparing them to showcase their talents during this year’s Emancipation Day celebrations.
The camp, which is being held at Westbury Primary School from July 13 to August 21, is also planning educational tours, sporting activities and a mini carnival involving other cultural camps across St Michael.
Camp director Glenn Harvey said on Wednesday that the programme was designed to keep young people engaged while exposing them to valuable cultural and practical skills:
“We’re going to have a number of things going on here. We’ll be doing crochet, drumming, dancing, jewellery making, [a] whole host of other things.”
Harvey said the camp had built a strong reputation over the years, particularly in crochet competitions:
“The year before we won everything in crochet, including the Prime Minister’s Award. Last year we missed out on one award, and again we won everything. We are looking to carry ‘way everything this year.”
He added that campers would also benefit from educational outings:
“We have four tours planned for this year. We call it tour and picnic where the campers get to tour places of educational interest and then from there we go and picnic at popular picnic spots… also places of educational interest.”
Another initiative being planned is a community mini carnival.
“We are planning to have a mini carnival around the community,” Harvey explained. “I spoke to the senior youth commissioner for St Michael, and we want to have the other camps from St Michael involved in it as well. But we are looking specifically mostly at the culture camps.”
He noted that campers would also play an active role in this year’s Emancipation Day celebrations.
“The culture camps are playing a great role in it in terms of performing and learning in the streets.”
Harvey said many of the children attending come from nearby innercity communities including New Orleans, Baxter’s Road, Westbury Road and Passage Road.
“It’s good to see that the kids are here to keep their minds employed in different activities, and I think that the government would have done a very good job in terms of keeping these camps running.”
Having spent more than three decades working with summer camps, Harvey said Community Vibes has now been operating under its current name for five years.
“I like working with young people especially, and I enjoy being here. Sometimes things can be a little hectic, but those are things you got to prepare for, especially when you’re working with children.”
Harvey praised Senator Shane Archer, the new youth and culture minister, for the changes.
“I want to compliment the new minister … on implementing those new measures in terms of upping the capital spending and the salaries … for both camp directors and camp assistants.”
Crochet instructor Sybil Fiedler introduced campers to one of the programme’s cultural and entrepreneurial skills, explaining that the craft could become much more than a pastime.
Sybil Fiedler teaching crocheting to campers. (Photo Credit: Lauryn Escamilla)
“Crochet is a fibre art where you could take strings and make them into things,” she told the class. “It’s an art that you have to love.”
Demonstrating the basics, she explained that every project begins with a simple foundation.
“This is the first stitch that we do. And after you finish doing chains, then we are going to do a pattern.”
Encouraging the children not to become discouraged, she reminded them: “Don’t let this master you. You master it.”
Fiedler said crochet could provide young people with practical and financial opportunities beyond the classroom.
“It’s a new skill they’re learning… especially teenagers now. A friend might see them wearing something and ask: ‘Where you get that from?’ ‘I made it.’ ‘Make one for me.’ ‘How much is it? Ten dollars.’ And there you go. They earn their own cash.”
Calling it “a life skill”, she added that campers would eventually create granny square bags and other projects to be displayed at the camp’s exhibition before the camp ends on August 21.
(LE)
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