Nature solutions for Community development

This December we all enjoyed an awesome experience.   We were able to plan and produce an amazing field trip for 50 of the children in some of the local communities that we work with.   The trip was planned also as a way to celebrate with the children the end of the school year.   We invited the members of 6 of the youth groups that we have formed and supported for the last year and a half.  These groups of children are committed to protect the environment and help their communities diminish their impact on their surroundings.  

This experience was completely new for most of the children that attended the activity and made them extremely happy.   It is hard to describe the immense pleasure that these children experienced and the excitement of the previous days. We had to answer a million questions about what to bring and what to wear.   And then, it was so hard to make them to go to bed, these guys were so excited and so happy they didn’t want to waste time by going to bed.  Doing things that they had never done before like going to the movies or going to the museum changed their lives.

The objective of the camp was to build leadership among children and showing them the difference between a good leader and a bad leader.   But the event was so much more than that.  It was an exchange of experiences among the different youth groups, what do they do, what are their challenges.   This event helped them see some of the small wonders of the world, and what one can accomplish as a person, as a group and as a community.

Ten years ago, when we had the needed funding, we conducted a similar outing with the youth group in Drake Bay.  Today these kids are all local leaders, self-employed, and entrepreneurs.  They shine over other people of their generation and in their community. We are hopeful that this generation of youth will shine just as brightly.