On Thursday the 14th of July, Weave’s Kool Kids Club began our 2nd Switch camp for 2017 in partnership with a Jewish leadership organisation, Stand Up. On this camp, we had nine amazing young people come along, accompanied by six of our incredible Kool Kids workers and four awesome Stand Up workers.
Lucy, Mel, Beau, Adam and myself met at Kool Kids Club on Thursday morning to do some last minute prep, then we hopped onto our busses and got on our merry way to pick the Switches up. Following pick-ups, we headed to Stand Up’s clubhouse, Habo House in Waverly. Once at Habo House, the Switches joined in on some super fun icebreakers to warm everyone up, then we had some time to unpack and settle in before discussing the theme of the camp.
Importantly, the camp was centred on healthy relationships, and physical, emotional and mental health and wellbeing as themes that are extremely significant for our young people. All of the activities that our Switches enjoyed were structured around the main themes of the camp, and through this, our young people engaged really well with topics that they could relate to. Following day one’s activities on the themes of the camp, the Switch’s packed their lunches and we headed off to SkyZone in Alexandria for a super fun afternoon of SkyClimb. The rest of Thursday with our Switch group and Stand Up was amazing; we ate lunch, played a game of netball (mostly to keep ourselves warm) and enjoyed more activities around emotional wellbeing. After some downtime, we walked to Our Big Kitchen in Bondi to cook our dinner: Zucchini and Sweet Corn Fritters, and Spaghetti Bolognese, followed by delicious apple strudel for dessert! Yum!
Fortunately for myself, Beau and Adam, the Switches were so exhausted from their big day that, apart from a couple of giggling girls, bedtime was (mostly) a breeze. However, true to form, those giggling girls were the hardest to wake in the morning. Once everyone was awake, we packed all of our things up, ate brekky super quick whilst awaiting Evie’s arrival and then got started for the day!
Our Friday was jam-packed! We started off with some more activities regarding healthy friendships, emotional regulation and teamwork. By this point, our Switch’s were well and truly exhausted from engaging in all of the activities, so we headed off to Sydney Aquatic Centre at Olympic Park for the rest of the afternoon. The Aquatic Centre was super fun, the Switches hung out in all of the play pools for an hour, then we headed to the diving pool where they went crazy jumping off of the diving boards. Some of them were so brave and took on the 7.5-metre diving block! Eeeek!
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, our Switches had bonded so well with one another, and some were quite sad to be going home and leaving their friends. On the way home, we played games of Spotto (obviously I couldn’t let any of the kids win), sang our hearts out and slept. All of the kids thanked us and asked when the next camp will be as they got off the bus at their homes.
As expected, our Switches were so well behaved throughout the whole camp. They were respectful, polite and open to learning new things. Kool Kids workers have no doubt that our amazing Switch group will grow into amazing young leaders. Big THANKS to Hayim, Yionni, Laura and Daniel from Stand Up for putting together an amazing camp for our young people. Thank you to the amazing Nicole Mekler, for coming along and helping out. Last but not least, thank you to our incredible Kool Kids workers! You each work tirelessly to ensure our precious young people are cared for, comfortable and loved, which is invaluable.