A New Journey With STEP 2018 Youth! (Part 2)

Source

Let's continue the journey with underprivileged youth in STEP 2018 camp, here is the Part 1 if you haven't read so.

All of us woke up about 8 am ++ and youth's bus will be expected to reach the camp around 10:30 am. We took our quick breakfast, actually nothing much other than oily and unhealthy food. We then did our volunteer alignment meeting and set up registration table. There are total 39 youths from 3 differents welfare homes and 1 refugee school. Yupe, you heard it right, we have 1 refugee school coming too. So these youth in the refugee school most of them are from Somalia where they came to Malaysia due to war in their country.

Youth Arrival

Time flies, 10:40 am and we heard the bus coming in and stop at the main entrance of the camp due to the limited space in the camp, bus only allowed to stop at the roadside and unload all youth. We have few volunteers escort them to the register table and some of them will escort them to the dorm room.

Once they unload their stuff in the room, all of them are required to gather at the hall and lead coach will be kickstarting the camp with some speech. When all of them are in the hall, the first thing I notice is there are 2 groups. 1 group sitting at the left side of the hall and the other group is sitting at the right side of the hall and leaving a "hallway" in the middle of the hall. I think there is an "invisible" river there and not allow to cross over (I'm just kidding! lol). It is totally normal as they will be sitting with their friends or those who come from the same welfare home.

Let's It Begin

Lead coach kickstarts the camp with a brief introduction of herself, who she is, what she is doing as a professional, what is her goal, and what is her passion. She then shares a little bit on how she changes from a boring corporate job into her passion (education). Along the introduction, she makes some jokes and I personally think that jokes are one the best way to icebreaking. The other ice-breaking way will be asking questions and raise hand activity. For example, she will ask something like this "how many of you are here today because you want to learn something new and fun?", of course being a Malaysian we are too shy to raise our hands. Next, she asks "how many of you are here because you are being forced to attend?", some of them raise their hand and some of them start laughing. The last question is the most epic one, "how many of you no matter what I ask you still don't want to raise your hand?? (looking at that youth ), you guys better raise your hand now ya (in a jokes tone)". Well, we notice not all of them really wanted to attend the camp and some are being forced to join the camp for whatever reasons. We are here not to judge, but to assists, provide guidance, and coach them to become a better person.

Ice Breaking

The next activity will be their first ice-breaking game which is "5 & 10 cents".

The game rules are simple:

1. Guys, you are worth 5 cents
2. Girls, you are worth 10 cents
3. When lead coach said you are now worth 95 cents, all of the need to form a group with a total of 95 cents (e.g.: 9 girls + 1 guy)
4. Volunteers will be verifying each of the group to ensure they pass their maths

When the game starts some of them are still confused and don't know how to play while some of them are taking the initiative to start counting and start to form a group to win the game. Those are the leader characteristics. We at the same time also monitor who is the natural leader person as it will be super useful in later games (evil laugh). On the last round, lead coach wanted a group which worth total of MYR 4.10 and she gives a tip to the youth, "everyone in the room is playing! So start counting!" Everyone includes us as well, some of us are actually already mingled with the youth hopefully youth understand everyone and grab us. Some of us are standing on a chair and start dancing to get their attention. Unfortunately, it takes longer time for them to realize MYR 4.10 include all volunteers and lead coach as well.

First Game "Resilience"

After lunch, they are going to start playing their second game which is "Resilience". The game will break into 7 stations and each station will have a different set of game for them to complete in order to get a "Complete" sign from us. It looks like the amazing race on a smaller scale. Each station will have at least 1 or 2 volunteers. The rule is simple everyone in the group needs to participate and all of them is break into 6 groups and start running around the camp compound to find us.

I'm the number 7 station and my game is called "Human Entanglement". My station is located at the end of the campsite which rare any human will explore that area. It is so quiet and I can hear mosquito flying around my ear. A stray dog then comes and visit me and both of us sitting there while waiting for the first group of youth challenge my station. Actually, if I don't walk around there is no one will notice my station. Some of the groups are so funny, they know I'm one of the volunteers and they don't bother to ask "Is this your station?", the reason they don't ask is that all 6 stations are pretty well set up as their station required some props to play while my station required 0 props the only thing they need is their both hands to play the game. I overheard one of the youth tells his group members "there is no station here, you see nothing set up for us" and he saw me sitting there with a piece of paper (game rules). Hello? you don't even bother to come nearer and ask me? I then smile at them and continue sitting there.

After a while, the same group came back and they decided to ask me this time and I asked them why don't you ask just now? He just smiles. So, after I explained the game rules to them, they start to hold hands and untangle among themselves and it is so funny to look at them. They failed for the first few times and finally, they found out the trick to untangle themselves without break group members' hand. Yes, some of them are too focused on the game and neglected team members' hand are going to break.

The entire games last about 3-4 hours I think, after a short debrief on what they had learned from the game and what they feel when you can't win certain games and how they feel after they complete a difficult game with group members help (some stations are really meant to work as a group to win the game). While they sharing in front, we volunteer to share at the back of the hall and telling all the funny experience.

Second Game "Night Hunt"!

The last game of the day is the most excited and most fun game which is "Night Hunt!". As I mentioned in my previous post here it is a kind of mannequin acting in the dark and all of us need to put on white powder on our face, neck, and hands so that we are like a ghost sitting/standing around the campsite. So while youth having dinner we already in the hall prepare our first scene as well as helping each other to make up!

We waited for them in the hall for about 30 minutes while lead coach conducts the briefing to the youths about safety and tell them not to poke us as we need to be a mannequin. We started our scene 1 in the hall as a brief introduction and at the same time show them what is this game about. After the 1st scene, the lead coach brings all youth out of the hall and go somewhere else so that all of us have enough time in position at a different location around the camp. Starting from scene 2 to 7 all volunteers are holding 1 scene. So youth will be running around to look for the clue and solve the mystery story.

The Night Hunt story for this camp is about 2 families which both fathers are the best friend for a long time and in scene 1 in the hall, one of the father announces his son going to marry to his best friend's daughter. The daughter actually doesn't love the guy and she got another lover within the family. So daughter started to run away from the family, her mother shouted at her, and his father bang table to show anger. Then all of us freeze again as an indicator the scene is done. Point is the entire story is about complicated relationship and at the end of the story one of the father is dead and youth need to figure out who kill the father, how he died, and what is the killer's motive.

I'm one of the father in the scene and my partner actually is my mistress (my best friend's first wife), so both of us having an affair and we will have some-not-so-intimate-scene. Well, all the youth are below age so we can't kiss or intimate hug each other. Fun fact, youth are so interested to our scene to the point 1 of the groups actually visited us 3 times just to watch us acting and I think they enjoy too much at our scene and forget about other scenes!

Night Hunt lasts about 2 hours and again every game we will have debrief for the youth by our lead coach. Then youth started to share all those funny stories when the lead coach asked who kill the father, motive, and so on. All of us are so enjoy listen to their messy storyline, lol. We ended the day with 2 dances, yes we dance a lot in the camp! Be in after lunch, before the session start, or at the end of the session.

End of Day 1

Guess what, next day which is Day 2 all the youth are required to gather outside of their dorm at 7 in the morning for exercise! I will continue on Part 3 for Day 2. Stay tuned!

Thank you for reading such a long post! So much experience to share and to write but I think this post is too long! :)

Note: All photos are taken from Pixabay.com unless stated otherwise