Day 7 - Bye, Bye! Keep In Touch!

Day 7 was our last day at the camp, but that didn't mean that we just packed and left. After breakfast, we summarised the experience gained at the camp and shared our impressions. Then, we played the game "Talking Behind the Back" and wrote compliments to each other.

All the campers received prizes for being special in some way: the Most Tolerant: Goda and Robertas; the Most Respectful: Rūta and Marko; the Most Friendly: Vitalija and Martyna; the Most Active: Rokas, Daniela, Augustė; the Sweetest Girl: Goda and Anna Helena; the Sweetest Boy: Gunars and Ąžuolas; the Most Enthusiastic Volunteers: Vitalija, Rūta, Lūcija, Anna, Raili, Daniela, Augustė, Ieva, Evelina and Agija; the Best Dancers: Misha and Raili; Inseparable Friends: Alice L., Alice P., Angelina and Valerija; for Great Progress in Communication Skills: Ivis Niks; for a Deep Understanding of Tolerance Issues: Nadina; for a Philosophical Attitude: Megija; for an Optimistic Attitude: Eimantas.

The campers made a surprise present for the head of the camp Eglė - thank you for being a wonderful host and manager of the Tolerance Camp!

...And then it was time to say good-bye... and go home... and continue to spread the ideas and ideals of tolerance!

Day 6 - Our Planet: We Love Nature!

Day 6 was our last full day at the camp. To start with, we had a discussion about our planet Earth and how important it is to keep its environment clean. This was our introduction into today's topic Our Planet: We Love Nature! After the discussion about ecological issues, we played a relay race in which we had to sort out recyclable waste into the right container. We then created a poster dedicated to planet Earth and composed poems based on the 3 Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

In the afternoon, we went on a trip to Merkinė - a historical town located in the regional park of Dzūkija. We split into teams and had a photo treasure hunt competition. The task was to take creative pictures in 3 main areas - the Observation Tower, the coastline of Nemunas, and the Mound of Merkinė. After the trip, each group made a presentation based on the pictures taken. We voted for the best picture of each team. Here they are:

In the evening, we made a playlist for the evening dancing party :) The party lasted for several hours. Later in the night, when the party was over, we played a game where each camper  had to guess the name of his/her secret friend (see description of Day 2) who was standing behind him/her. This was so exciting! Then we stayed up all night and had great fun chatting, laughing, and sharing the impressions of the camp.

Day 5 - Our Society: The Future Is In Our Hands.

Day 5 started with an unusual game, which was a bit like volleyball, but instead of a ball, we used water balloons. A lot of balloons exploded, and many of us got wet, but we did have a winner - a player who managed to catch all the balloons intact! To finish the game, we had a water balloon fight - just to make sure that everyone was equally wet! 

Today's theme was Our Society: The Future is in Our Hands, we talked about a number of international organizations, including NATO, The International Red Cross, UNESCO, Doctors Without Borders,  and their role the world.

We watched a few videos about these organizationsand got  some factual information which was supplemented by our tutors' explanations. We learned that these organizations play a very important role in the world - they maintain peace, cherish cultural heritage, care about nature and the well-being of people. We also realised that every person can help these organisations to achieve their goals - by volunteering and contributing to their activities.

Our special guest today was Althea Cawley-Murphree, Assistant Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy Vilnius. Althea told us about what it means to be a diplomat as well as about the importance of cooperation between the different nations of the world. Althea also read to us an extract from a story about Hariet Tubman - a national American hero and an inspiring woman. Later, we sang a song which carried a deep meaning of the importance of justice, compassion, and freedom. At the end of the visit, Althea granted each camper and tutor a certificate from the US Embassy and thanked us all for our active participation in the camp activities and spreading the ideas of tolerance.

After dinner, we continued today's theme of international organizations with some interactive activities covering UNESCO,  Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross. We took a closer look at  UNESCO's  4 pillars of education, did a quiz on the International Red Cross and made a fundraiser plan for Doctors Without Borders.

We finished the day by talking about the emotional bonds that connect different people living in different countries and we also tried our creative skills in "building  bridges" - both metaphorically and literally :)

Day 4 - Our Rights And Responsibilities.

Day 4 marks the halfway of our camping experience, and it started with really "sporty" gymnastics. After breakfast, we found out today's  main theme - Our Rights and Responsibilities.

We discussed what rights and responsibilities are, which ones are the most important for us as children, students, citizens, and we shared some examples from our own experience.

Later we talked about people with special needs and disabilities, and the way these people are threated by others. We came to the conclusion that all people should be treated equally, regardless of their disability. We should all play games together and communicate in a natural way. 

Then we had some more "acting" practice in our"social theatre" to show how our rights and responsibilities are related to certain situations. For example, we considered vandalism and different ways to deal with it. We agreed that sometimes we should call the police to stop the vandals, while  sometimes we should just talk to the vandals and explain to them that what they are doing is wrong. It is both our right and resonsibility - to care about common property and to prevent vandalism.

We concluded the morning with the point that every person has certain rights which also become certain responsibilities, if we wish to live in a safe community and to foster human values.

In the afternoon, we had a guest - Danguolė Streižytė, an alumna of USGP. Together, we discussed the topics o cultural beliefs and body language. We played a vocabulary game and then discussed what kind of body language is appropriate and what is not.  

After we said good-bye to the guest, we prepared some surprise activities for the tutors of the camp. We all enjoyed playing charades and a singing game.

In the evening, we had another activity on the main topic of the day - we made a poster with top five rights and responsibilities that we considered to be the most important ones for all of us.

As we still had a lot of energy and creativity, we ended our day by creating the flag of the camp.

Day 3 - Our Community Values: Tolerance, Friendship, Respect.

Day 3 began with morning gymnastics, which was lots of fun and very different from what we usually have at school!  
Our Community Values - Tolerance, Friendship, Respect - was the main theme of the day. We shared our ideas and understanding of these values - it looks that we know quite a lot about them :) We then watched two videos: one showing that no matter how different people are, they may share the same interests and have similar goals in life; and the other one illustrating the importance of keeping your identity and sticking to your ideals and principles, regardless of what others might think of you. 

  

We also had a picture caption contest! (By the way, caption is another word that we have learned here at the camp :) Our task was to create captions for pictures which illustrated various situations of teenagers' communication and behaviour, inlcuding both kind, polite and friendly as well as unkind, impolite and unfriendly. We all voted for the best captions, and their authors received nice chocolate prizes :)

After lunch, we had a visitor -  Jelena Grigorjeva, Alumna of the US Government Programmes, who told us about her experience at a school in Montana. We learned that the children of that school were involved in a volunteering peroject - assembling wheelchairs and thus raising money for the less well-off children in Mexico. We also watched a  video about young American students volunteering in a hospital and playing with kids to make them feel better, Jelena also shared her experience of similar activities in Lithuania and told us about students who volunteer at a special needs kindergarten. Together, we discussed what voluntering is, why it is important for to do voluntary work, and what kind of voluntary work could be done by every person. At the end of her visit, Jelena invited us to play a fun game and to check what we know about life in the US. 

After dinner, we had another values related activity called "Social Theater". We prepared and performed various mini-sketches on the topic of  bullying. Each group of "actors" had to show two outcomes of a bullying situation - negative and positive. Some of us were great actors and actresses!

Making "friendship bracelets" was a nice conclusion of the day which helped us realisze once again that  being nice, polite and friendly is the key to tolerance and understanding. 

Day 2 - Our World: Countries and Languages.

Day 2 started with an unusual kind of gymnastics. We did exercises related to our names and we learnt the names of all campers very well! After making sure we remembered the names of the campers, we started playing the game of “Secret Friends“. Each camper (including the tutors :) drew the name of one other camper who is going to be “a secret friend” throughout the camp, which means that we have to show special attention to the special friend - but in a secret way :) 

After breakfast, we did the Baltic States Knowledge Survey. We worked in national groups and collected information about the other two countries. We asked questions about different aspects of teenagers’ life and then summarized the survey results on posters.

In the afternoon, we had a special guest: Justin Tomczyk, Public Affairs Officer, US Embassy Vilnius, who shared his life story with us and helped us learn a lot of interesting facts about the United States. Justin comes from Chicago with 2.5 mln. people of different nationalities who speak 40 different languages. Though they are different in many ways, the people in Chicago have common values and understanding that tolerance and positive thinking is the best way to overcome the differences. Then, together with Justin we did a few interesting activities about the U.S. (wordsearch of the names of states, a quiz and a picture card hunt) and learnt more about the country of the guest.

After dinner we created our room posters to represent our small "camp homes" of fairly different yet amazingly similar campers!

The day ended at the campfire by sharing the impressions of the day and role-playing a story called “Magic Forest”. It was great fun and we laughed a lot!  

                   

Day 1 - Welcome to the Tolerance Camp!

July 11th is the first day of the Tolerance Camp. We all arrived safely at Dvarčėnų Dvaras, unpacked and settled in. We then made colourful envelopes with our names on them and introduced ourselves to the other campers. The envelopes were put on a “friendship-line” which is also going to be our "post-service" - a way to communicate in writing. Then, we devised our camp rules for various aspects of camp-life. During these activities, we got to know each other better and made friends. In the evening, we were a bit exhausted, but happy and excited about what tommorrow brings.