A Hope and A Dream

In April I was invited to volunteer at  Camp Hope. A weekend long camp for kids with disabilities. I was given the opportunity to interact and help out with kid who were blind or partially sighted, as a Buddy. A Buddy is there to help in the organisation of the camp, plan activities, meals, and also being paired with one of the kids for the whole weekend.

It was quite an emotional, fun and fulfilling time spent with these kids. Most of the have been lived with their disabilities their whole lives, so they were self sufficient. And because they were aged between just 5 and 16 years, there was a lot of energy going around.

I was assigned to take care of one girl, Naledi, I ended up taking on a few more kids who seems quite happy with me... These are some of them

I took care of Naledi

Laticia, a sweet child, she helped take care of her friends

AB, the mischievous

When you successfully climb up the wall, you feel like you can conquer anything. This exercise was meant for both the Kids and the Buddies. It is much tougher than it look. Well done to all the kids for completing the challenge

 There were fun and games too. the jumping castle seemed to be the most popular

 

 The Hout Bay Rainbow Dreams Group Came in one evening to sing for the kids, and later they join us for supper, where we had to eat in the dark, blind folded in respect of the blind kids. My food mysteriously went missing before I could even put a fork in...

The kids and their respective buddies were divided into groups, and we were the Monkeys. A fitting name for us, as we had very energetic kids. We also had the youngest of the whole camp, Simphiwe the little monkey, only five years old. Each group had to come up with a skit for the talent show. We were surprised when the Monkeys wanted to sing and dance to Justin Beiber's Baby song...

One of the evenings we had a serious drumming session, for a straight hour or so everyone was jamming to the beat, some of us had percussion instruments, I had the cow bell to play. The sounds of music was so magical no one wanted to stop, but alas it was bed time and we had and early morning filled with fun activities ahead of us.

At the end of the camp the kids were given presents, certificates of attendance and were given the opportunity to write tiny messages of hope, put them in helium balloons and let them fly into vast blue sky......