Provide Summer Camps for 500 Youth in Transylvania

Here in the small town of Miercurea Ciuc, winter is the longest and coldest season of the year. As we live in the valley, the fog also tends to stick with us for weeks. People retreat to their homes, social activities are scarce.  Before Christmas we participate in charity actions that offer Christmas presents for kids in need and we visit the after school clubs in the surrounding villages and give presents to the children. Sadly no white Christmas this year, it is an unusually warm and dry winter, so the three week winter break didn't offer many possiblities of fun our-door activities for children. We decided to take advantage of the quiet periode around the holidays and organised a mini winter camp in our office for a children's home in a nearby village, called Frumoasa. The camp was facilitated by an American and a local volunteer and 6 children attended every day for 5 days. It was really successful, full with fun activites in English. 

This time is also a time of reflection and we feel very greatful for everyone who helped us achieve so much in the last year. With the 18 camps we facilitated last year we were able to provide quality activities for more than 500 children in the area, coming from a disadvantaged socio-economical and geographical backround, who otherwise would not have the possibility for any learning and social activities outside school.  

It is time also to thank our wonderful local volunteers for helping us in running these camps, translating between the foreign volunteers and the children, coming up with new ideas and facilitating the activities. Without them it would be impossible to organise the camps. We organised a volunteer meeting in January, where we invited all the volunteers who were active in 2019, gave out volunteer certificates and celebrated together with pizza, snacks and happy memories. 

We will put extra effort into the promotion of volunteering in the local schools this year and plan to visit all high schools in the area with presentations about the concept of volunteering and to recruit new volunteers. 

We wish you all a very happy and successful 2020!

Thanks to generous support, Care2Travel was once again able to organize summer camps for disadvantaged and village children in the local community. These camps were held between mid-June and mid-September of 2019. To hold the camps took months of organizing, from working with the host schools, to recruiting and training local volunteers, as well as preparing for our international volunteers that came throughout the summer to assist. 

As always, Care2Travel offered these camps free of charge. Some schools selected to charge a fee. This fee was at a maximum 20 Lei, and all funds received remained with the school. Two of the camps, held at Csaracsó, were overnight camps. These camps, for children from particularly economically or emotionally disadvantaged homes, were open 24/7. As a result, the camp was able to provide much needed attention, care, and support for these children. The other summer camps were held weekly for up to 6 hours a day, over four days. In total, Care2Travel was able to host or support 14 summer camps and 3 after school camps and provided snacks/food for 486 children. 

Care2Travel was able to run the camps with the help of 67 local volunteers, working mostly as translators, who assisted our foreign volunteers. Our international volunteers numbered 125 this year, with some volunteers working at more than one camp over the course of the summer. Each Monday was a preparation day, usually consisting of 2-3 hours of local and foreign volunteers planning the various games and activities that would take place during the week. The rest of the week was devoted to hosting the camps and engaging with the children. 

Most importantly, the children who attended the camps had an amazing time. The goal of the camps is to assist the children in learning English. Primarily, children are taught new English words while participating in a series of competitive and fun games. Games included ball games, hockey, and races. The kids could also be seen ¨working out”, creating arts and crafts, and dressing-up for a fashion show. During the week, each child is assigned to a team consisting of other children and a mentor. Together, the team designs their own flag and work together to score points for their team. In this way, the children develop teamwork, teambuilding, and communication skills while also learning their English words. At the end of the week, the winning team is crowned and all children are recognized. Care2Travel is grateful for the support to be able to provide these camps for the children, helping them to not only learn English but to create new memories for them as well.