The goal of the camp: To develop a willingness to make social relationships by giving love and by presenting life models. To create a stress-free, relaxed atmosphere with a lot of singing and playing. To bring the children closer to the Gospel by sharing personal experiences.

Participants in the camp: 45 children, 7-12 years old, 20 of them coming from families with addiction problems, in addition there were 3 half-orphans, 6 children were supported by the Foundation’s funds.

Camp staff: 20 camp staff members, 19 of them were volunteers, one of them was a teacher of the handicapped.

The theme of the camp: The title of the overall program was "Knights Camp”. The camp staff presented through short scenes the story of Gideon.

The prevention games with Bible themes were connected to these messages and were presented to the children during the small group discussions. Also, they could puppet-play during the evening programs, which were based on the book "Mio, My Son” written by Astrid Lindgren. The book can be considered as an analogy on the salvation story of Jesus Christ in the form of a knight story.

Morning teaching: During the first part of the morning we had a whole group program. After singing and having some games the staff acted out the Gideon stories. During the play the staff tried to formulate the message of the stories very clearly. In this way the teaching was presented through the Biblical scenes, which was followed by summing up and teaching a golden proverb each day.





Creative activities, handcrafts: On the first day the girls and the boys were all drawing their coat of arms. With the exception of the first day the handcraft activities were organized in separate groups for boys and girls. The girls made crowns, masks and a coin purse, and the boys made shields, helmets and a sword. In the free time it was possible to paint toy cars, to draw, to do bead work and to have other creative activities.

Small group activity: In the afternoon the teaching continued in small groups, as skill development games related to the topics were played. There were five small groups divided according to age, with 7-10 children and 2-3 camp staff members in each group.

Sports.: The weather was favorable all week for open air sport activities, so we succeeded in following our schedule: on the first day we had "chicken run", on the second day we had a trip in the forest, on the third day the children took part in "knights tournament” – according to the theme of the camp – and on the fourth day there was an outdoor treasure hunt in the area of the campsite.

Evening program: Dinner was followed by the evening program when the small groups presented their skits and plays. In the first evening the staff and the children played scenes from the world of knights and chivalry, on the second evening they had a common story-telling program next to the camp fire. In the evenings the staff presented puppet plays from the story of "Mio, My Son” written by Astrid Lindgren in a condensed version. On the last evening there was a closing "ball” when the princes and knight candidates dressed with the accessories they had made during the week and they became real princes and knight characters during the ceremony. The staff also dressed up into renaissance and knight outfits and the king and the queen opened the ball with a renaissance dance and then led the ceremony of creating the knights and princesses. The knights and princesses were offered cookies during the ball. The ball was followed by a puppet play and the usual evening tale.
Boróka Bedő, camp leader

Experiences in the Children’s Camp

I was in the previous camp, so I already knew some of the children who attended the camp last year too. It was very good to see how they have progressed since then. Last year there was a child who was very unsociable, it was impossible to approach him and he didn’t want to have contact with the other kids either. But this year he was like somebody else, completely changed, he was beaming with joy, he was open and interested. And it was even more interesting to me that it turned out that he was a leader-type who was followed by the other kids. For me this was a very good experience. On the last day of the camp it was nice to hear from the children, “Can’t you make the camp last longer?” or “Would it be possible to have a two-week-camp next year?”
Bogi Bedő, volunteer staff member

Two days after the camp I had a very pleasant experience. There was a child who attended the camp and her mother previously warned me that we should pay more attention to her, because she had difficulties adapting to new circumstances. The mother was afraid that the child would not enjoy the camp. Two days after the camp somebody called me from a telephone number I did not know. When I answered it, to my great surprise, it was this child on the other side of the line and told me that she was calling me from her grandmother and that she was missing us, actually she was missing the whole camp. It was also nice to hear from other parents too that their children were filled with excitement, they were relating their experiences from the camp about their activities and that they already missed the camp.
Boró Bedő, volunteer staff member

Handcrafts with the children, the evening tales, and the staff members' presentations and role playing performances were my favorite activities in the camp. This year we made princess-crowns with the girls and shields and helmets with the boys. I really enjoyed it when I saw that the girls were walking for days like real princesses with their crowns made of toilet paper rolls, sprinkled with mica, and decorated with silk veils.

The evening story-telling was a real challenge to me, but I was glad that we could involve the children and each evening program was concluded with a funny play. It’s true that the story-telling continued in the bedrooms too: we read from an “each-day-a-tale” kind of story book. We asked their dates of birth and every child had a story. After everyone was listening to his/her own story then the dates of birth of the girlfriends and staff members came next, until we all fell asleep during the story-telling. Honestly, without the tales nobody could have fallen asleep.

From the morning role-plays I really learnt that maybe it doesn’t really matter how much time the preparation takes and how fantastic the accessories or equipment is, but what really matters is the quality of the care we can give to the children. Do they feel that we are with them; do we keep track of them? Sometimes it was embarrassing when the children remembered my name even after years and I’d forgotten theirs. Are they important to us, do we love them? And if we can honestly express these feelings –and I think we could always succeed in the camps to a certain extent – then we, the staff members, are also filled with energy, we get enriched! Maybe this is the reason I’ve been returning to these children camps for years as a volunteer staff member.
Zsuzsi Adorján, volunteer staff member

Supporters of the program: Stichting Hulp Oost-Europa, Foundation dr. Attila Verestóy, Dutch Reformed Church of Kamerik, Ms Edit Bányász - London