We recently had the opportunity to connect our partner, Star High School with the African Youth Leadership Experience (AYLE). AYLE, In collaboration with In Movement: Art for Social Change, hosted a 10-day camp in Kampala for students from 6 schools in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The goal of the camp was to cultivate and sharpen life skills in self-awareness and self-care, civic and environmental education, social entrepreneurship, and community leadership.We were so excited to have 3 SHS students and 1 teacher selected to attend the camp! Here is the feedback we received from those who participated.
Why did you want to attend Camp Uganda?
I wanted to know and learn about life skills and how to associate with people from different countries and learn more about leadership skills. –Emmanuel
I wanted to attend Camp Uganda due to the influence of the topic of leadership and my future vision to become a leader. –Mary
What was the best part of the trip?
The best part was arriving in Kampala and finally meeting the campers. They welcomed us as if we already met before and that awakened a sense of responsibility, energy, power, and passion for the rest of the camp. –Gloria, Teacher
The best part was getting into a new environment associating with different people! –Emmanuel
What was the most interesting activity or workshop that you participated in?
The most important and interesting activity was Gender Day. I learned a lot about rights of men and women and how they should take their leads as leaders in the society. –Gloria, Teacher
Participating in the “Cheesecake Game” which needed a lot of creativity and innovation. –Joseph
“The River of My Life” game where we drew representations to share about our lives. – Mary
How are you going to share what you learned with your fellow students?
I am going to share about gratitude and attitude, public speaking and that they should be people who appreciate and have enough confidence. –Mary
I will conduct various workshops with fellow students because I am a leader of the Junior Leader club. I will teacher them the leadership skills that I got from the camp. –Emmanuel
I will act as an organ of change by sharing my knowledge about leadership, self awareness, creativity and innovation. I will help students to realize the potential in them more than performing best academically. –Gloria, Teacher
I will write all the important things I learned on cards and display them on notice boards so students can read them. –Joseph
How was Uganda different from Tanzania?
The land form of Uganda. Most places are hilly and also, in education Uganda is a bit higher. –Emmanuel
Uganda was different in terms of food. We ate Matoke and also the currency and cost in Uganda is different. –Mary
Uganda is not so different, but I love it because it is evergreen and the people are pure hearted. –Gloria, Teacher
What was it like to be with people from different places, speaking different languages?
At first it was weird, but I got used to if because we all spoke English so we understood each other. And I also got to learn some languages. –Joseph
It was very exciting and we enjoyed learning their language—such as sulabulunji (Goodnight). –Mary
It was like a sheep wandering in a desert since it sometimes gave me a hard time to understand what people spoke. – Emmanuel
What would you tell another student about Camp Uganda?
I would tell them they can learn a lot since they help someone to make his or her vision and goal become true and they have to expect changes for their lives. –Emmanuel
I would tell them that the camp was awesome, extremely good and they should expect new skills and new ideas that they didn’t know and talents that they didn’t know that they have, also how to govern their life. –Joseph
Camp Uganda is a creative, enjoyable place of teamwork where fun is part and parcel of your life. They should expect transformational leaders coming out of AYLE in years to come. –Gloria, Teacher
How did Camp Uganda influence or change you?
It changed my life style, especially in conflict transformation and taught me mistakes and failures are okay. –Mary
It changed my personal attitude since now I am able to speak in public as one of the leadership skills we were taught. And also I learned to stand for myself in making decisions. –Emmanuel
It made me realize the leader in me and so many other potentials. As a helping facilitator it was challenging but all in all I learned a lot and will share that potential wherever I will be. Then it also awoke in me the courage to make a project, vision, and a goal for finally making it happen. –Gloria, Teacher
It changed me in different ways, especially in handling conflict/ conflict transformation. This workshop changed me a lot from what I was before. –Joseph
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A big shout out to AYLE for hosting our students and so many others for this life changing experience. As you can see from the pictures and student feedback, it was 10 days well spent in developing the student leaders of East Africa!
To learn more about AYLE, In Movement, and the camp, please visit:
http://africanyouthleadershipexperience.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/inmovement.org