Written by: Jessa Gan
Camp Explore was a 2-day day camp that was organised by Central Community Development Council (CDC), a camp targeted at underprivileged kids in an attempt to plug learning gaps during the holidays. It uses a model based on the five domains the MOE encourages to be expanded in the school. The five domains are adapted from the popular Asian Chinese teaching model, “五育 － 智德体群美”, the 5 domains being the Cognitive, Moral, Physical, Social and Aesthetics.
Empty Pocket felt that it was a meaningful way to spend the holidays, and also wanted to find out more about the target audience in the camp through interactions so that we were more able to plan future advocacies; and hence, signed up for one of the camps from 15th – 16th June.
Throughout the 2 days of experience, I felt that the camp exposed the kids to different things that they may not have opportunities to be exposed to in daily life.
I was especially thankful for the opportunity to talk to some of them on a more personal level. From the interactions I’ve had with the kids, I gained more insights on some difficulties children of a more underprivileged background may face. It occurred to me how some of them may be facing a very different childhood from that of mine.
I cannot make generalizations on the situation of being underprivileged in Singapore based on the number of people I talked to, but it did shed more light on the situation and made me understand that being underprivileged in Singapore is more than not having enough money, there are also other social things that may be borne from the situation, or lead to the situation. It made me understand that we cannot just look at statistics and let these numbers tell us about the situation the underprivileged kids may be in because there is so much more to it and every household is different.
Throughout the experience, of the many exposures that they have had to different activities, I learnt that introducing certain skill sets or interesting instruments can engage the children a lot more. During the camp, each child was given a ukulele to bring home and was taught how to play it. I felt it was very appropriate because of the easy mastery of the basics of how to play a ukulele. On top of that, I learnt that having them focus their time on an instrument could allow them to transfer their energy on something productive. Rather than doing some other things after school, having a musical instrument can engage the children even at home and it could become something of interest. It is difficult to say how many children would actually just leave their ukulele at home untouched, but the fact that a ukulele was given to them to bring home ensured that there was at least something tangible they could bring away from this camp that could possibly still continue to engage them even months after they camp. This could ensure that some objectives of the camp could continue to be fulfilled after the camp that lasted for 2 days because within 2 days, it is difficult to pass on to the children all the things that the camp organizers would have wanted to.
The main objective I had for the camp was to ensure that the children all had fun, and I was pleased to see that that fun factor was definitely fulfilled. There were new exposures to various things and through all the excitement, willingness to try new things, and how approachable they were, I felt like I was once again reminded of the innocence of a child and how straightforward their thinking were. Would like to volunteer for another camp as such in the near future, and even though I would say that a 2 day camp cannot ensure that they bring back a lot, because of how short the camp is, at the very least they bring with them memories of the camp and hopefully a few learning points they got from the various activities.
Raffles Community Advocates 