Camp Fihavanana: Day 2

I am Jacobin Ainatsiferana, one of the Camp Counselors who is from the beautiful island of MADAGASCAR. It is a great privilege and an honor for me to be a part of this amazing project, which aims to produce young adults who think for themselves, think outside the box, respect their surroundings, and seek to contribute to the growth of their communities, especially in the sense of “fihavanana.”

Training week has been an absolute blast! I really enjoyed getting to know the team that I would work with for two weeks. I love that we are all from different parts of the world, different family backgrounds, different experiences, yet we all have one thing in common – to create opportunity. One, for the young adults we are working with, and two, for us as camp leaders, having the opportunity to share the things that matter to us.

Today, August 1, 2017, was the second day of camp and it was awesome! We had to make a quick decision on where we were going to do our sports training because it hadn’t stopped raining and our campers were meeting us at the fields. With great teamwork we were able make the adjustments needed to run all of our activities in one spot at Hotel Bezanozano.

The kids rotated between soccer, lacrosse, and basketball in the first half of the day and unexpectedly learned skills and lessons that would apply to their daily lives. When asked what they had learned from these activities, some of the most common answers were “learning to communicate and work with the people on your team is what brings victory” and “learning to bounce back from a situation where your team is losing.”

It was very encouraging to for me to see the kids having a great time at camp but also expressing their joy in learning what we have prepared for them and having the eagerness to carry those things lessons out to their homes.

I am extremely proud of my team for working together to make this camp amazing. Thank you all for sacrificing your time, money, and energy to invest in the future of my country.

Jacobin Ainatsiferana is from Antananarivo, Madagascar and is a member of the 2017 Camp Fihavanana Staff.