SOS Summer Camp

The SOS Summer Camp

Alas – it is summer again. Summer for me means volunteering for FESF’s annual summer camp for the SOS Orphanage in Malir, Karachi. I have been working with FESF- a foreign NGO, for the past three years and I have been part of several activities including teaching at a garage school of less privileged students, carrying out fund-raising projects, and carrying out a summer camp for orphans in Malir. For two weeks, FESF organizes a MOVE program for teenagers – seminars on leadership, communication, and team-building skills. We also learn sign language during these two weeks to be able to communicate with the deaf who also attend the Summer camp. After the seminars, the volunteers are divided into several groups with two group-leaders and a group coordinator to head them. In separate groups, we carry out careful planning of the schedule of the summer camp – filling in a planner with the activities that we come up for the children to do. Then the actual camp begins. The camp is tiring, yes. We reach Malir by 9 in the morning and leave by 6 in the evening.  When we reach home we are tired, exhausted, worn-out and drained, but there is one thing that makes us get up in the morning the next day and go to Malir again. The kids. Yes, they are truly amazing. If you deal with them properly and are able to show them that you genuinely care for them, they will give you all the love in the world. They will make you cards and bracelets and stick with you, and wait for you early in the morning when you reach the camp. They will cry on the last day because they say they will miss you and you will end up crying with them as well, and then they will make you promise that you will come back the next year. The camp starts on the 12^th of July! I cannot wait!