By Kenji Saito | Representative Director
Please find a Japanese version of this report here.
On the weekend of June 28-29, 2014, Academy Camp held our first dragon boat camp at Lake Inawashiro, with 24 elementary school, junior high and high school students in Fukushima.
On the first day, the weather was bad with strong wind and rain. We cancelled our training at Lake Inawashiro that day, and instead, we did many indoor activities such as practicing paddling, dodgebee (dodgeball with soft flying disc), core training, stretching and skipping ropes. Also, we did a little scientific thinking on how boats can be made to move fast using a simple knowledge of fluid mechanics while we wait on a bus.
On the second day, we caught a short period of a fine interval between rains in the morning, and put our two dragon boats on Lake Inawashiro to practice actual paddling. We experienced that the boats can move fast if everyone paddles at the same pace together. We stopped practicing as the rain started again, and we moved to Experiences and Interchange House of Inawashiro Town in the afternoon. There, we had a lecture by a member of Eyes, JAPAN, a venture company based in Aizu Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, and a student from University of Aizu, on shooting pitcures using drones. Catching a fine interval again, we had some moving pictures of ourselves taken from above, while we formed human letters "AC" for Academy Camp.
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At the closing session, each group of us chose a word that represents the two-day experience and shouted it out: "cooperation!", "vigor!" and "(number) one!". Surely we paddled as one, and it was a team-building experience.
Just when we were finishing our schedule on land, there was a rollover accident of canoes at Lake Inawashiro. Academy Camp takes it very seriously as we want to continue our activities at the lake. On July 6, we reconfirmed the safety of our operation with a help from university students of Terakoya Network from Aizu Wakamatsu, in order to protect the safety and health of children.
BONUS DAY WITH 50% MATCHING!
GlobalGiving's partner reward bonus day, that matches donations to Academy Camp at 50%, starts at 9:00am EDT on July 16, and continues for 15 hours or until the fund runs out. Please consider taking this opportunity to further support children in Fukushima and Academy Camp.
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