It was really beautiful that many young people who came to the camp have a communitarian background. We where honored to host three young people from the Institute Favela da Paz from São Paulo. We had three girls from the community of Damanhur, Italy. Two boys from Ionia a community in Alaska, and many more.
We started with an introduction to the work of Tamera looking in to the different aspects we are working with. On the second day we already took the whole group and went to the beach, spending two beautiful days out under the stars and at the Atlantic ocean. This time always serves the coming together and getting to know the group. We started with boys and girls rounds, offering a chance for the young people to open and show themself in a circle with topics that move in their hearts. For many it was possible to recognize that they are actually not alone with their questions, problems, wishes and beautiful moments, but that many of the others feel exactly the same way.
When we came back we had a speech and exchange about community related to the picture of the forest as a vital image of what a community could look like and mean. In the afternoons we always came together to sing in a choir and afterwards having a forum and sharing space for the whole group.
We dedicated one morning to the issue of love school, which always feels super important to open a space concerning those innermost topics that everybody is dealing with. After an introduction space we shared in smaller groups about the topics of: My first time, loving more then one, how to be truthful in love and sexuality, …
For the Matinee on Sunday morning we had the pleasure to listen to Claudio Miranda, a peace worker and musician from the Institute Favela da Paz. He is an inspiring example what lived community means, in these times and in such a situation like the Favela in the outskirts of São Paulo.
In the second week we started with 3 days divided into 4 subgroups in which our young people could deepen the content in the following areas: a love school group, a political group, a philosophical spiritual group and a service group. We focused on that topics as we asked our self’s before the camp what are the central topics which the young people of today are most busy with?
At the end the subgroups presented their experiences and what they had learned to each other. In this way everybody could get an insight into the different aspects. We generally had the impression that this worked out very well as the most of them were really inspired and touched.
During the last days we gave time for the people to reflect and write about what they had learned in their groups. Using the material that we had created and gathered we finished our youth camp with a beautiful presentation of texts, poems, songs, rap and performances in the night at our cultural center. We were honored to have a wonderful artist named Rita Moreno amongst the team who directed this whole performance very spontaneously.
It was exciting and very daring for these young people to show their thoughts and insights in a very direct and honest way to such a big audience. In the end they received a lot of applause and appreciation and the evening ended in a beautiful dance party full of happiness and gratitude.
For us it was overall a successful youth camp besides being also exhausted in some parts. It was a big group this year having almost 50 Teenagers in the camp. There was a general feedback from the youth that the time should have been longer as the level of trust and feeling of being together grew strongly in the last phase of the camp.
We have the feeling that we learned a lot through this camp. It made us think what the youth camp of Tamera should be about and what we would like to focus our energy on in the future.
We want to express our gratitude to all the youth, for their big trust and to all the helpers and teachers that contributed.
Thank you!
The Youth Team
