I AM HUNGRY! THEY'RE STARVING!
This year's Worldvision Famine Camp 2010 had intended to focus on increasing the awareness and the empathy of Singapore's youths about the plight of starving children across the world. The camp was organized around a series of experiental activities for a duration of 30 hours to bring across the message and hopefully stir the youths into action to help the starving children.
The Symbolic Bite Before The 30 Hour Famine:
One of the main activities on Day 1 was the symbolic bite of a delicious Crystal Jade bun by all the participants - campers, facilitators, and organizers before the actual camp commences and I thought it was a fabulous idea to mentally and physically prepare all the participants about the hardship to come.
The Experiental Games As A Family:
The campers were separated into 8 different countries with approximately 10 families in each country and every family group has a family head, vice-head, a few adults and a few children. The concept is for each family to try and figure the best way to achieve the experiental games' objectives - $100, education for all the family members, vaccinations for all the family members, 40 kilograms of water and 10 kilograms of food. The family has to make collective decisions on how best to juggle school, work and even illegal jobs to fulfill such needy objectives, thus mimicking the life conditions of a typical family in 3rd world conditions. This game concept was as realistic as it could get because the campers were made to decide under imperfect market conditions - most of them have to rely on guesswork and persuasion, subjecting themselves to simulated harsh treatment by various station masters who acted as employers for jobs or disgruntled workers from 3rd world hospitals or schools.
However, a major drawback from that, unlike a limitless supply of water from last year's Famine Camp, this year, each camp participant only had a refillable 125ml mineral water bottle, with which they were told to refill whenever they were thirsty. The problem was the camp never really gave any time for breaks for refilling of such water as the experiental games were really intense and most of the campers seemed to be really parched from all the running and games. Personally, I thought that was an schedule oversight, especially when the campers were then both hungry and thirsty and tired when they did not have to be subjected to such a punishing camp schedule.
Talks, Videos and Presentations:
After the grueling experiental activities which lasted from nearly 4 hours, the campers were finally able to take a reprieve from the heat, confusion and physical fatigue by listening to a series of talks, presentations and videos at the main hall as Worldvision Singapore had invited the speakers to give their views and share their experiences about working at difficult, and sometimes dangerous, places to secure the safety, freedom and integrity of the much needy people in other parts of the world. One of the speakers' talk was pretty dry and bored many of the campers as the speaker droned on and on but another speaker managed to capture the attention with a more lively talk and an interesting video about the plight of street children in Asia. A further question and answer session perked up the morale of the campers once more before the talks, videos and presentations concluded and the campers made their way to dinner - packet drinks before retiring for the night.
1,200 Campers Sleeping In For The Night:
This was one of the logistical nightmares of the camp because it was really not easy trying to arrange 1,200 camp participants into a sports hall, with all their belongings, decent sleeping space and of course, enduring the noise, smell and clutter. Most the waking night before the lights out timing at around 1am was spent arranging the sleeping bags and making sure none of the camp participants slipped out at night without permission as Worldvision Singapore actually hired two professional guards to keep watch over the camp participants. This was considered as a nice touch as most of the camps that I had attended (no less than twenty) had very little concern over the security of the place at night. Another major plus was that the camp facilitators did not have to endure late night debriefing sessions (which lasted till nearly 4am last year) and most of the facilitators actually managed to squeeze some decent hours' of sleep for this year's camp.
Area Cleaning Before Departing For Orchard Road:
It seemed like many of the campers, who were students in various secondary schools and junior colleges, had trouble trying to clean up the camp. Many were reluctant to clear the litter and the rubbish bins and were groaning throughout the entire exercise. I thought it sort of acted as another unintended experiental activity since many of these students had maids at their beck and call back home but had to personally clear and clean up in the camp. After much complaining, the camp was tidied up and everyone fell back to the assembly hall.
The Arduous Waiting For The Buses:
All the camp participants spent most of the second morning waiting for the buses to get ready to bring the whole camp to Orchard Road Scape Park and thus the organizers used the time to practice the mass dance for the event. The dancers were brought in and instructions and rehearsals were conducted. I must say the dance was pretty interesting but there seemed too little time for everyone to learn a dance within an hour and deliver the dance competently and confidently on Orchard Road in front of so many strangers - this was later translated into a less enthusiastic-than-expected dance because most of the campers were still unfamiliar and shy about dancing in front of complete strangers on the busiest street of Singapore. As a facilitator, the second morning was also one of the greatest challenges that faced me because I had to try and motivate and cheer my group on since the waiting was amplifying the hunger. Most of my group were already bent over from the hunger but fortunately the dance practices cheered them up somewhat.
More Waiting at Scape Park Orchard:
When my group finally reached Scape Park Orchard, yet another two challenges awaited us. One of them was that there weren't enough buses to bring all the 1,200 campers to the venue so the buses had to make multiple trips - this easily translated into more waiting time - about 2 hours before all the camp participants were present at Scape Park Orchard for the mass shelter building for some world record. The second challenge was the intermittent rains which prevented the activity from happening until the organizers decided to go ahead with everyone setting up cardboard shelters (one per family of eight campers) under slight drizzling conditions. Although the weather was looking gloomy, everyone seemed a lot happier to be doing something rather than waiting for something to happen or some instructions to filter down. After about 45 minutes, all the shelters were up and everyone got ready for the mass dance and flash mob along Orchard Road.
The Mass Dance and Flash Mob:
My group was assigned to do the mass dance in front of Takashimaya Singapore and alongside with a number of families, the contingent swelled to about 350 people and it was really prominent as we were in bright orange and green T-shirts saying "I am hungry! They are starving!". As the timing was in the afternoon around 5pm, I took the audacity to allow my group to do some window-shopping and have a stroll inside the air-conditioned mall since all of them had just built the shelter under drizzling rain and subsequent hot sun. The mass dance was activated upon the timing with an impressive display by dancers from the Singapore Youth Festival and there were even mascots to bring the mood even higher. Unfortunately, not all of the campers were energized enough to deliver a properly coordinated dance so I myself thought we could have more practice and preparations for such a public display before we commit ourselves on Orchard Road. The Flash Mob was done with more gusto than the mass dance but it was suddenly limited to just one venue along Orchard Road instead of the briefed three locations. Such last minute changes also caused much confusion amongst the campers and facilitators alike.
Finale Concert and Break Fast:
The Break Fast, after an arduous 30 hours of activity and waiting, was quite a disappointment. Although it was mooted from Crystal Jade Restaurant, it only consisted of white rice, two small slices of chicken in some unidentifiable sauce, two small cauliflowers and a thin slice of carrot with a small bottle of mineral water. This less-than-expected meal triggered a small uproar amongst the campers who began to filter out of the Finale Concert watching area and started to head to collect their own bags without permission from the organizers. Apparently, most had the idea to find more rewarding food to satisfy their hunger pangs. The Finale Concert was thus being neglected by most of the hungry campers even though there was a slight perk at Jack and Rai's performances but it went downhill from there onwards as almost 500 campers were already making their way to the bag collection room five floors above the concert area. The human traffic jam there was spectacularly chaotic and after much impromptu crowd control, most of the bags were collected by the campers after another arduous hour of waiting and pushing by the mass of hungry and eager-to-go-home campers.
By the time every major event concluded, my fellow facilitators from the same country and myself were so exhausted that most of us chose to find a nice, cozy Japanese restaurant to tuck into some ramen and ice-cream and rest our tired feet (we had been sitting on the floor for no less than 4 hours for the entire second day of the camp). The general consensus was that the camp was enjoyable in its own rights but some parts of the camps were rather lacking organization whilst overly-ambitious and the camp organizers were underestimating the cumulative effects of hunger and fatigue working against both campers and facilitators, especially resulting in the ragged morale and exhaustion on the second day.
Personally, I am still thinking if I would still join Famine Camp 2011 because ultimately, I would not want to dismiss the good charitable cause behind the Famine Camp 2010 - more awareness was indeed created amongst youths about hunger and starvation and the poor living conditions of children across the world, even though the organization of the camp was weaker compared to last year.
I think there was a saying which goes something like "Hate the sin, not the sinner". Perhaps that saying would sum up my afterthoughts for this camp after all...
(Thank you for reading the extensive afterthought blog post. Time to bathe and sleep ^__^ Tomorrow will be a better day.)
Showing posts with label Charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charity. Show all posts
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Pending Posts: Worldvision Famine Camp 2010 Singapore and Singapore's Children's Society Anti-Bully Camp 2010
Hmm..it's been so long since I last blogged. Been so busy and lethargic about blogging that I have to admit the guilt of neglecting my poor old blog. I have intended to blog about the two recent camps that I have just attended and this pending blog post will be long and as detailed as possible to satisfy those faithful blog readers who are still popping over to take a peek once in a while (I know because I have a good counter program embedded).
I promise the blog post will be up before the weekend is up. For now, time to rest my exhausted feet and mind from the camps before I rush off to work tomorrow morning again. Goodnight everyone! ^__^
I promise the blog post will be up before the weekend is up. For now, time to rest my exhausted feet and mind from the camps before I rush off to work tomorrow morning again. Goodnight everyone! ^__^
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Singapore Children's Society Project Cabin Camp 2009 9 Nov to 11 Nov
I have just returned from the above-mentioned camp as a volunteer group leader and this blog post is all about all the interesting encounters that have happened during this camp. The objective of the camp is to enrich the values of the students using the core motto of the camp for this year "No Man Is An Island".
The camp started on 09 November 2009 (Monday) from Bukit Merah Student Hub Centre with a group of 10 staff, 9 volunteers and 64 Cabin Club students and the entire group traveled all the way to Pasir Ris Holiday Flats and Dormitories for the residential part of the camp.
I was in charge of one of the eight groups of students and was also in charge of a group of 14 students in the male dormitory whilst the rest of the campers were residing either inside the female dormitory or the holiday flats. It will be too cluttered to write everything inside this post so I will just highlight some of the major events and what I considered to be really memorable encounters during the camp itself.
Night Trail at Pasir Ris Park Mangrove Boardwalk:
This was one of the biggest event for Day One where students would have to traverse the Mangrove Boardwalk in pitch dark conditions to reach five different stations within the Boardwalk to perform certain activities to earn tokens for a subsequent camp event the following day.
Although each of the groups, led by a volunteer group leader, was allowed to bring torch lights, the lighting conditions inside the Boardwalk were so bad that none of the torches could shine beyond 5 meters before the darkness enveloped each group. Hence, the Night Trail was of considerable challenge to students who had to overcome their individual fear of the dark and rely on the strength and courage of the group to complete the tasks at hand.
Special Encounter - Dark Presence in the Forest:
(Disclaimer: I am not advocating any idea of superstition or negating any form of religious beliefs here. I am merely stating what I have encountered during the camp.)
During the second station, where each group was supposed to visit a unmanned pavilion to search for some tokens in a treasure chest, my group, which was the last one, made quite a racket in the darkness, talking and discussing loudly about the search for the tokens when I noticed the surrounding darkness becoming "thicker" and "thicker".
Logically, darkness should only constitute the color of black, but the longer my group lingered at the station (they were really keen on finding every single token), the darkness surrounding the pavilion seemed to have increased its shade of black multiple times over in the space of a few minutes and the surrounding air became much colder.
Realizing something was amiss, I quickly warned my group to keep their volume down and exit the station as quickly as they could. As we were leaving the pavilion (I placed myself as the last person of the group), a deep chill ran down the entire length of my spine and I felt a huge dark presence standing right behind me. I remembered what my National Service platoon commander told me - resist the temptation to look back in the middle of the forest so I did exactly that - I walked quietly without a word as my entire group proceeded to the next station.
For what it seemed like an eternity, the dark presence followed right behind me, and I had to resist the urge to push my group to go faster lest I aroused the curiosity of the students who might look back at me. We prodded until the next station was nearly in sight and suddenly the dark presence just stopped following me and seemed to have turned back. The cold chill in my spine disappeared instantly as well.
When I reached home, I "googled" what I had encountered and realized that dark presences are part of paranormal activities and cross-checking with some of the more experienced ones revealed that a possibility of that particular dark presence was a manifestation of what they would call as a shadow giant - an ancient of the dark dimension that resides in extremely dark places. Reputed sizes of these shadow giants could reach up to several stories high. According to what I had estimated, that dark presence was at least 9 feet tall so it could have tallied with what the experienced ones had said.
Thankfully, that shadow giant seemed more intent on escorting the entire group out of its territory than on harming us. I was so worried that the students in my group might be harmed in any way while it was following us for that seemingly forever few minutes. I am going to stay away from that particular pavilion from now onwards.
Loss: Thankfully none.
Gain: +1 Luck, +1 Wisdom
Outdoor Fun at VivoCity:
The second major camp activity was on Day Two where the groups had to weave in and out of the many shops within VivoCity to try and compare prices of items. Simply put, they are supposed to find items starting with a set number of letters in the alphabet and to collate the prices of these items. The group with the lowest prices from all these items wins. The activity was enormously draining because groups had to run around the entire VivoCity to fulfill the task which was further interspersed with three game stations that they had to find using only clues.
Special Encounter - The Defiant Rebel
My group, in my opinion, was the most difficult group to lead in the entire camp. That was because the group was fractured into very different groups - half the group had such close friends who were allocated to other groups was always clinging onto their friends for most of the time, refusing to temporarily leave their cliques even for the camp. The other half consisted of loners who barely uttered more than twenty sentences in the forty-eight-hour camp, sleepy heads who would grab any possible time to return to the sleeping quarters to nap, and rebels who would want to defy any instructions because their philosophy of life was "rules are meant to be broken".
What I considered to the most obnoxious rebel happened to be in my group. During the Outdoor Fun activity at VivoCity, he was shouting and ordering another volunteer group leader around at one of the game stations in front of many groups and members of the public that I had to yell at him to shut up. Although I was given pre-camp advice that "everyone had some good in them", I did not seem to see what good was there in that blatantly rude behavior of that Obnoxious Rebel.
After lodging a seriously-worded complaint with the relevant staff member from the Singapore Children's Society, a meeting between that staff member, the Obnoxious Rebel and myself was convened later that afternoon where the student in error apologized for his behavior, citing the reason that all his friends had always been giving way to his antics. I explained that although some rules could be broken given the circumstances, not all rules and decorum are to be abandoned at the cost and embarrassment of so many innocent others. I also told him that his actions at VivoCity had put his fellow groups to shame, offended the other volunteer group leader, disgraced his authority over the other group's campers and brought bad light to Singapore Children's Society in the eyes of those members of the public who witnessed the incident.
The Obnoxious Rebel subsequently tried to participate and cooperate more actively in the remaining activities without a single word of complaint and the camp eventually passed with no further incident or conflict. I learned that some rebellious youths expected everyone to give way to them and to understand their every action and word, no matter what the potential consequences are. I also understood that I had, and will continue to have, nearly zero tolerance for selfish individuals when they are supposed to take into consideration the best interests of the group before themselves.
Loss: The remaining members of the group caught on his bad example of rebelling and began to laze during most of the camp, making my work even harder at times.
Gain: +1 Speech, +1 Knowledge
The Night Watch at Pasir Ris Holiday Compound:
On the final night of the Project Cabin Camp 2009, all the nine volunteers agreed to take over the night watch duties for the entire camp compound so the over-worked staff members could take some much-needed rest. What followed was a night of eating, drinking, playing, observing and catching of some naughty campers who tried to slip out of their sleeping quarters for unknown objectives.
The nine volunteers dragged out a number of chairs and arranged them in a circle in the middle of the only road running through the camp compound at around 12.30am. We also lugged our favorite items with us to accompany us for the long watch of nearly 6 hours ahead of us - soft toys, mini pillows, torch lights, windbreakers, ipods, video cameras and not forgetting, loads of packet drinks, snacks and leftover food from that night's buffet dinner.
For nearly an hour, the volunteers were talking about some of their most interesting personalities within their respective groups. At around 1.30am, we began to play the game "Murderer" to pass time. Believe me, it was really difficult in the semi-darkness to see those winks and we had a lot of fun trying to find out who the murderer and the detective was. We surely had a good laugh over one of the volunteers who seemed to be always one of the first victims to be "killed", one of the most unobservant detectives who took a long time to seek out the murderer and also one of the most reluctant murderer who took a long time to seek out his victims. To sum it up, we labeled him as the worst player for the game which he still took it within his stride in good sport. ^__^
Special Encounter - The "Night Crawlers"
Somewhere around 3am to 4am, two of the male campers tried to slip out of their holiday flat quarters for reasons unknown. A stealthy and quiet opening of the door followed by two crawling figures in the semi-darkness. However, my night vision was better than what they had expected and I already spotted their movements and pointed out the little misadventure. One of the volunteers immediately recognized the identities of the crawling figures and quickly ran up to stop them from crawling towards a back stairway.
The volunteers continued their night watch by playing a prank on one of the female volunteers who had just returned from a regular patrol session around the camp compound. The prank was hilariously simple - totally ignore the presence of that volunteer as if she had already returned to the sleeping quarters to sleep. The results was wriggling fun as the volunteer was stomping her feet and going around "strangling" all the volunteers seated at the circle, only to be answered with "Oh my god! I felt something touching my neck! Was it the wind?"
The whole prank continued to balloon with the inclusion of the "Flying Plastic Fork". The female volunteer had a white plastic fork in her mouth then and we all commented with pretentious awe that a "holy fork" had joined the circle of night watch and whenever the "holy fork" moved, we would hail it as some sort of divine sign of communication. The end result - the female volunteer was so tickled that she played along with the game and used the fork to continue some silly charade for another hour or so.
When the night watch ended the next morning, I thought to myself - it was definitely the most entertaining and enjoyable night watch that I had ever participated in as the jokes were great, the pranks were hilarious and the watch was fruitful with another four more students caught walking out of their sleeping quarters before the reverie hour was approaching. If I had another chance to go on another night watch, I would definitely seek the company of those eight people.
Loss: I only managed to grab 15 minutes of sleep after my night watch duties ended.
Gain: +1 Fun, +1 Experience in Night Watch
The volunteers were under strict instructions not to take any photos or videos of students during the camp so as to protect the identities of these students whom the Singapore Children's Society consider as children/youths-at-risk. Hence, I could only take back memories and recollections on this blog. The following are some of the more scenic pictures that I had taken.
The sunrise photograph was taken on the morning of Day 3 when I was nearing the end of my guard duty. I was stretching myself and waiting for the campers to wake up when I noticed the beautiful sunrise creeping up from the tree horizon.
The sky was full of alto-cumulus clouds - small and fluffy like numerous cotton buds. It provided a really serene touch to that particular morning. It has been so long since I could find time to cloud-watch and snap such pictures. What a beautiful world of Nature if one could only stop and smell the flowers and feel the breeze.
As a volunteer group leader and dormitory in-charge, my in-camp schedule was usually so tightly-packed that I could only have time to put up a picture of the dinner that was handed to us during Day One - packet lunch with rice, eggs, chicken pieces, beancurd and mixed vegetables. It tasted delicious because I was already famished from all the work from settling in the campers, briefings and ice-breakers.
The camp started on 09 November 2009 (Monday) from Bukit Merah Student Hub Centre with a group of 10 staff, 9 volunteers and 64 Cabin Club students and the entire group traveled all the way to Pasir Ris Holiday Flats and Dormitories for the residential part of the camp.
I was in charge of one of the eight groups of students and was also in charge of a group of 14 students in the male dormitory whilst the rest of the campers were residing either inside the female dormitory or the holiday flats. It will be too cluttered to write everything inside this post so I will just highlight some of the major events and what I considered to be really memorable encounters during the camp itself.
Night Trail at Pasir Ris Park Mangrove Boardwalk:
This was one of the biggest event for Day One where students would have to traverse the Mangrove Boardwalk in pitch dark conditions to reach five different stations within the Boardwalk to perform certain activities to earn tokens for a subsequent camp event the following day.
Although each of the groups, led by a volunteer group leader, was allowed to bring torch lights, the lighting conditions inside the Boardwalk were so bad that none of the torches could shine beyond 5 meters before the darkness enveloped each group. Hence, the Night Trail was of considerable challenge to students who had to overcome their individual fear of the dark and rely on the strength and courage of the group to complete the tasks at hand.
Special Encounter - Dark Presence in the Forest:
(Disclaimer: I am not advocating any idea of superstition or negating any form of religious beliefs here. I am merely stating what I have encountered during the camp.)
During the second station, where each group was supposed to visit a unmanned pavilion to search for some tokens in a treasure chest, my group, which was the last one, made quite a racket in the darkness, talking and discussing loudly about the search for the tokens when I noticed the surrounding darkness becoming "thicker" and "thicker".
Logically, darkness should only constitute the color of black, but the longer my group lingered at the station (they were really keen on finding every single token), the darkness surrounding the pavilion seemed to have increased its shade of black multiple times over in the space of a few minutes and the surrounding air became much colder.
Realizing something was amiss, I quickly warned my group to keep their volume down and exit the station as quickly as they could. As we were leaving the pavilion (I placed myself as the last person of the group), a deep chill ran down the entire length of my spine and I felt a huge dark presence standing right behind me. I remembered what my National Service platoon commander told me - resist the temptation to look back in the middle of the forest so I did exactly that - I walked quietly without a word as my entire group proceeded to the next station.
For what it seemed like an eternity, the dark presence followed right behind me, and I had to resist the urge to push my group to go faster lest I aroused the curiosity of the students who might look back at me. We prodded until the next station was nearly in sight and suddenly the dark presence just stopped following me and seemed to have turned back. The cold chill in my spine disappeared instantly as well.
When I reached home, I "googled" what I had encountered and realized that dark presences are part of paranormal activities and cross-checking with some of the more experienced ones revealed that a possibility of that particular dark presence was a manifestation of what they would call as a shadow giant - an ancient of the dark dimension that resides in extremely dark places. Reputed sizes of these shadow giants could reach up to several stories high. According to what I had estimated, that dark presence was at least 9 feet tall so it could have tallied with what the experienced ones had said.
Thankfully, that shadow giant seemed more intent on escorting the entire group out of its territory than on harming us. I was so worried that the students in my group might be harmed in any way while it was following us for that seemingly forever few minutes. I am going to stay away from that particular pavilion from now onwards.
Loss: Thankfully none.
Gain: +1 Luck, +1 Wisdom
Outdoor Fun at VivoCity:
The second major camp activity was on Day Two where the groups had to weave in and out of the many shops within VivoCity to try and compare prices of items. Simply put, they are supposed to find items starting with a set number of letters in the alphabet and to collate the prices of these items. The group with the lowest prices from all these items wins. The activity was enormously draining because groups had to run around the entire VivoCity to fulfill the task which was further interspersed with three game stations that they had to find using only clues.
Special Encounter - The Defiant Rebel
My group, in my opinion, was the most difficult group to lead in the entire camp. That was because the group was fractured into very different groups - half the group had such close friends who were allocated to other groups was always clinging onto their friends for most of the time, refusing to temporarily leave their cliques even for the camp. The other half consisted of loners who barely uttered more than twenty sentences in the forty-eight-hour camp, sleepy heads who would grab any possible time to return to the sleeping quarters to nap, and rebels who would want to defy any instructions because their philosophy of life was "rules are meant to be broken".
What I considered to the most obnoxious rebel happened to be in my group. During the Outdoor Fun activity at VivoCity, he was shouting and ordering another volunteer group leader around at one of the game stations in front of many groups and members of the public that I had to yell at him to shut up. Although I was given pre-camp advice that "everyone had some good in them", I did not seem to see what good was there in that blatantly rude behavior of that Obnoxious Rebel.
After lodging a seriously-worded complaint with the relevant staff member from the Singapore Children's Society, a meeting between that staff member, the Obnoxious Rebel and myself was convened later that afternoon where the student in error apologized for his behavior, citing the reason that all his friends had always been giving way to his antics. I explained that although some rules could be broken given the circumstances, not all rules and decorum are to be abandoned at the cost and embarrassment of so many innocent others. I also told him that his actions at VivoCity had put his fellow groups to shame, offended the other volunteer group leader, disgraced his authority over the other group's campers and brought bad light to Singapore Children's Society in the eyes of those members of the public who witnessed the incident.
The Obnoxious Rebel subsequently tried to participate and cooperate more actively in the remaining activities without a single word of complaint and the camp eventually passed with no further incident or conflict. I learned that some rebellious youths expected everyone to give way to them and to understand their every action and word, no matter what the potential consequences are. I also understood that I had, and will continue to have, nearly zero tolerance for selfish individuals when they are supposed to take into consideration the best interests of the group before themselves.
Loss: The remaining members of the group caught on his bad example of rebelling and began to laze during most of the camp, making my work even harder at times.
Gain: +1 Speech, +1 Knowledge
The Night Watch at Pasir Ris Holiday Compound:
On the final night of the Project Cabin Camp 2009, all the nine volunteers agreed to take over the night watch duties for the entire camp compound so the over-worked staff members could take some much-needed rest. What followed was a night of eating, drinking, playing, observing and catching of some naughty campers who tried to slip out of their sleeping quarters for unknown objectives.
The nine volunteers dragged out a number of chairs and arranged them in a circle in the middle of the only road running through the camp compound at around 12.30am. We also lugged our favorite items with us to accompany us for the long watch of nearly 6 hours ahead of us - soft toys, mini pillows, torch lights, windbreakers, ipods, video cameras and not forgetting, loads of packet drinks, snacks and leftover food from that night's buffet dinner.
For nearly an hour, the volunteers were talking about some of their most interesting personalities within their respective groups. At around 1.30am, we began to play the game "Murderer" to pass time. Believe me, it was really difficult in the semi-darkness to see those winks and we had a lot of fun trying to find out who the murderer and the detective was. We surely had a good laugh over one of the volunteers who seemed to be always one of the first victims to be "killed", one of the most unobservant detectives who took a long time to seek out the murderer and also one of the most reluctant murderer who took a long time to seek out his victims. To sum it up, we labeled him as the worst player for the game which he still took it within his stride in good sport. ^__^
Special Encounter - The "Night Crawlers"
Somewhere around 3am to 4am, two of the male campers tried to slip out of their holiday flat quarters for reasons unknown. A stealthy and quiet opening of the door followed by two crawling figures in the semi-darkness. However, my night vision was better than what they had expected and I already spotted their movements and pointed out the little misadventure. One of the volunteers immediately recognized the identities of the crawling figures and quickly ran up to stop them from crawling towards a back stairway.
The volunteers continued their night watch by playing a prank on one of the female volunteers who had just returned from a regular patrol session around the camp compound. The prank was hilariously simple - totally ignore the presence of that volunteer as if she had already returned to the sleeping quarters to sleep. The results was wriggling fun as the volunteer was stomping her feet and going around "strangling" all the volunteers seated at the circle, only to be answered with "Oh my god! I felt something touching my neck! Was it the wind?"
The whole prank continued to balloon with the inclusion of the "Flying Plastic Fork". The female volunteer had a white plastic fork in her mouth then and we all commented with pretentious awe that a "holy fork" had joined the circle of night watch and whenever the "holy fork" moved, we would hail it as some sort of divine sign of communication. The end result - the female volunteer was so tickled that she played along with the game and used the fork to continue some silly charade for another hour or so.
When the night watch ended the next morning, I thought to myself - it was definitely the most entertaining and enjoyable night watch that I had ever participated in as the jokes were great, the pranks were hilarious and the watch was fruitful with another four more students caught walking out of their sleeping quarters before the reverie hour was approaching. If I had another chance to go on another night watch, I would definitely seek the company of those eight people.
Loss: I only managed to grab 15 minutes of sleep after my night watch duties ended.
Gain: +1 Fun, +1 Experience in Night Watch
The volunteers were under strict instructions not to take any photos or videos of students during the camp so as to protect the identities of these students whom the Singapore Children's Society consider as children/youths-at-risk. Hence, I could only take back memories and recollections on this blog. The following are some of the more scenic pictures that I had taken.
The sunrise photograph was taken on the morning of Day 3 when I was nearing the end of my guard duty. I was stretching myself and waiting for the campers to wake up when I noticed the beautiful sunrise creeping up from the tree horizon.
The sky was full of alto-cumulus clouds - small and fluffy like numerous cotton buds. It provided a really serene touch to that particular morning. It has been so long since I could find time to cloud-watch and snap such pictures. What a beautiful world of Nature if one could only stop and smell the flowers and feel the breeze.
As a volunteer group leader and dormitory in-charge, my in-camp schedule was usually so tightly-packed that I could only have time to put up a picture of the dinner that was handed to us during Day One - packet lunch with rice, eggs, chicken pieces, beancurd and mixed vegetables. It tasted delicious because I was already famished from all the work from settling in the campers, briefings and ice-breakers.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
World Vision Famine Camp 2009
I have decided to do something good for the June holidays - to join the World Vision Famine Camp 2009 at ACS Barker this year as a camp facilitator and this would be a long blog post covering the pre-camp training and the actual camp itself, including all my thoughts as captions for the photos that I have taken.
Facilitators' Pre-Camp Training at ACS Barker (23 June 2009 Saturday)
This is the room where it all started - I received briefings, training and instructions on the roles and responsibilities as a camp facilitator to lead groups of campers to educate, motivate and encourage them into action to reconstruct lives for the less fortunate children of the world who are currently plagued by poverty and HIV/AIDS. The Pre-Camp Training is a solid eight-hour event so I had to spend nearly the entire Saturday as a necessary step to becoming an efficient facilitator.
The first lunch provided by World Vision Singapore for the facilitators at the Pre-Camp Training - consisting of luncheon meat, cabbages and eggs with rice. Not too bad at all.
Those hairy legs belong to me and why my legs are tied together by a strap of rubbish plastic bag? Because I was designated as a Grandparent who suffered a leg injury. It's all part of the experiential activities where families (the campers) will have to live out 30 hours during the actual camp as 3rd world refugees escaping from a natural disaster, completed with missing and wounded family members and had to build shelters, seek medical help and find jobs to bring food to the starving members. Believe me, those with the leg injuries had to hobble around until they find the money to treat their injuries.
Yes, one of the jobs that those 3rd-world families can do is prostitution. Of course, it's just a simulated game but the point is there - most suffering families can be easily driven to desperation to try out anything that can bring in quick cash to feed themselves, no matter how dangerous or lowly the jobs are.
This is my "Identity Card" where I would need to show the Game Masters if I would to participate in any jobs or to seek medical attention. As you can see, my persona there had no education, had a leg injury, and only a strength of seven to do as much jobs before my strength ran out.
A quick shot of the chaos when the facilitators tried out the jobs. Everyone was confused - nobody knows which are the best jobs and what job hazards they entailed, nobody knows where to go to the various job stations. Chaos was deliberately created to simulate the conditions of the job markets in the 3rd world countries.
Actual Famine Camp 2009 (5 June 2009 Friday to 6 June 2009 Saturday):
The time was 7.40am and I am at a MacDonald's restaurant at an undisclosed location in Singapore having my breakfast before I head off to ACS Barker Road with all my camping equipment. I had a lot of excitement and thoughts in my mind then so breakfast, though, leisurely, was not very appetizing that morning.
8.30am - I am already at the canteen of ACS Barker and there were already some World Vision staff running around with sheets of paper and a number of facilitators who were eating breakfast and getting ready for the Facilitators' Briefing at 9.30am. I spent my hour there checking my equipment and reading the day's newspapers and talking to some of the World Vision staff.
12.30pm - The final Pre-Camp briefing was done and World Vision gave an extra bonus to the Facilitators by providing lunch to them before the Famine Camp was to officially start at 2pm sharp. I tucked in heartily because it was the last solid food lunch I am going to have before the Famine Camp - cabbages, pork and eggs and a slice of honeydew.
1pm - The campers began to pour in to regiter themselves and they came from various secondary schools and junior colleges - totalling up to one thousand of them.
The Facilitators were given red T-shirts to wear whilst the campers black ones for Day One of Famine Camp. This was taken at around 1.30pm where campers and facilitators await the opening ceremony to start. I was seated with a RIJC girl who was bubbly enough to tell me how excited she was about the camp. I hope the campers would enjoy the camp and I was up to par to be the kind of camp facilitators that World Vision needed.
The stage backdrop for the opening ceremony - I CAN. I WILL. Make the difference. A non-sophisticated and straightforward slogan for Famine Camp 2009. I am going to do what I can. The time was already 1.45pm.
2.30pm. Campers were given the first major camp task of the day - build a shelter capable of accommodating all their family members with newspapers, cardboard and whatever they could scavenge in the simulated 3rd world conditions. With 1000 campers who are grouped into families which they are not familiar with, facilitators whom they had just met minutes ago, and a searing 30+ degrees in the hot afternoon sun, it was no mean feat. Some groups hastily constructed some flimsy structures and their lenient facilitators gave them the green light. Others, like mine, are determined to put up something weather-worthy before we end the task.
3pm - most of the campers are still struggling, figuring out how to get those cardboard boxes to work and make the best use of those flimsy newspapers. Already, the sun is taking a toll and most people are soaked to the skin with sweat and this was just the first hour of Famine Camp.
My group was quite slow in starting up the shelter because they were utterly confused by the noise, heat, chaos and the materials they had to use. It was a good hour before they finally got down to some decent construction work. I kept myself from directly providing any help to them because as instructed by the briefings, the family were supposed to struggle and experience all the frustrations and obstacles by themselves so no hand-holding was allowed.
3.30pm - I strolled around abit to see what other families had came up with - some of them were quite creative to roll up newspapers to use them as pillars. It was creative but personally, if I were to roll a bottle of mineral water against those pillars, the shelter would collapse immediately.
3.40pm - my group finally finished their shelter. They overcame their difficulty by "stealing" tables and chairs from the classrooms in the school. Although it seemed unorthodox, it was 3rd world simulation and even stealing was considered as an option to secure resources needed for shelter, albeit illegal. I reminded them that it was a real risk faced by 3rd world countries' families to steal resources to build their homes and told them to return the furniture in good shape back into the classrooms immediately after the camp task was over.
3.45pm - I was particularly strict with my group because I did not want them to get the wrong idea that shelters could be constructed filmsily and be gotten away with in the real life situations with tough weather conditions. So I added further instructions by requiring all of them to perform the task of drinking water inside the shelter, thus preventing them to use their hands to support the shelter. Whilst they were drinking and distracted, I performed my quality control check of the shelter by throwing a full bottle of mineral water hard on the roof of the shelter and letting it roll across the entire roof of the shelter. The shelter's cardboard roofing held out and they were cleared to move on to the next task.
4pm - As the group moved on to the next location, I secretly hoped to myself that they would hold out and not balked out of the camp because it was difficult or tough. I followed them quietly to the next location, mind full of the instructions on how to lead them for the next camp activity.
5.10pm - Survival of the family rested on the ability to generate income to feed the family members. This was the farming station where campers had to pick up green peas in the midst of plants and soil to earn ice-cream sticks as money. The family with the highest number of sticks get extra presents at the end of the camp.
5.30pm - more campers flocked to the farming station and were concentrating hard at work to find those tiny green peas. The station had some small incidents of insect bites on the arms of at least two campers, one of them seeking help from me due to an itchy lump. I contacted the Programme Coordinator, Daniel, about it when I bumped into him and he radioed to check on the station while I moved on. Last check on the female camper - she was recovering well from the mysterious insect bite. I think it must be some insect which was disturbed from the hands prodding the plant hedges.
6.30pm - School was absolutely one of the life-savers in the game because if the family members were educated, they would be able to earn more ice-cream sticks and thus feed more people or heal more of their injured family members. However, you need money to study as well.
Within the classroom, campers get ready to be educated on the dangers and preventive measures of HIV/AIDS. In the background in white was Mandy, the Camp Coordinator , who was busy chatting with another female in formal business suit - most probably a sponsor representative observing the camp.
5.45pm - The Hospital where long queues were formed as numerous campers were branded with simulated work injuries - from head, eyes, arms, legs and the occasional "deaths". This was one of the toughest stations because many campers did not have the money to pay up or the Game Masters role-playing as medics and surgeons were deliberating giving the campers a hard time, simulating the harsh 3rd world medical conditions and situations of limited resources and unlimited demand for professional medical aid. Of course, there was a real-life paramedic right behind The Hospital station, whom I had the chance to interact and compare medical supplies with when I brought the female camper to seek medical attention. His general medical box was outfitted differently from my trauma medical pouch but the end objective was similar - preserve life, prevent condition from worsening and promote recovery. Thankfully, I did not encounter any serious medical conditions that require me to activate those trauma medicines and bandages. Hope the other paramedic did not either.
My group, happily basking in the airconditioning of the auditorium after their camp tasks for Day one. Some of them had to dress up in trash bags because they were simulated to be afflicted with HIV/AIDS when they did certain jobs which transmitted the disease to them. It was to create awareness about the social stigmatization of HIV/AIDS victims in the world. Morale was high within the group and even though they did not secure much money in the camp tasks, they were happy to learn as the de-briefing was done.
Whilst waiting for the evening camp tasks to start, they started playing some ice-breaking games to bond themselves further. I wished I could join them but that would mean missing out on announcements calling for facilitators for sudden briefings so I had to opt out and watch them play instead. With only one facilitator in each group, I could not miss out important announcements at all.
A special guest was invited to speak about HIV/AIDS and the campers were all ears listening to their stories and plights. I used to think most youths are totally apathetic about such things but with their attentive concentration shown on their faces then, I was proven wrong. Some of them do care.
A candlelight vigil was held on the evening of Day One to mark the campers commitment to help others. My camera phone was not of superior quality and I did not want to switch on my flash and disturb the solemn atmosphere then. My other eye was on the lookout for potential fire hazard since fire was involved so the shot was one of the poorest in the entire camp photo album.
12am Day Two - the Facilitators were gathered in a small room awaiting the briefing for the coming day's activities involving newspapers and old clothings collection at Tampines and Pasir Ris areas. Most of us were exhausted by then and morale was only kept up by the airconditioning and exchanging of stories of how the first day went by with the campers. No shower facilities were available that night and by the time the briefing was over. It was nearly 1am. We got permission to use a separate room from the 1000 campers to sleep in and the facilitators tucked in as soon as we could. I slept from 1.30am to 5.30am that night.
9.30am. Location - Somewhere in Tampines. Here's my temporary command post as I perused through all the instructions, map locations and phone numbers for the umpteen time whilst waiting for my group members to return from their newspapers and old clothings collections from the blocks of flats designated to us. Although I am accompanied by a cameraman volunteer from World Vision, I am solely responsible for the safety of my group out there so I was pouring in alot more concentration and caution. Two large blisters on my feet also prevented me from running up and down those stairs unless it was an emergency so I stationed myself to watch over those collected items and gave myself the duty to help upload all those items when the lorry came over. The blisters hurt like hell but I dared not show them to the group lest their morale is dampened. I was very pleased with my group because even under the blistering heat, they kept their smiles up for as long as they could and collected much more than I expected. I was so proud of them.
12pm. In between the waiting, I talked to the nice cameraman who took a break from the photographing and I took a shot of the mineral water bottles of my group with names written on them. They were a hardworking bunch, not hesitating to lug down heavy newspapers at the requests of residents approaching the command post and even stopping to help a wheelchair-bound elderly to move to the latter's destination nearby.
2.45pm - Such work obviously took the toll on even the strongest, let alone a group of youths so by the time we reached back to the auditorium, they were totally exhausted, dozing off and yawning away. Even the most enthusiastic of the lot was sullen and withdrawn, grabbing as much rest as they could. I kept my silence throughout, knowing they needed much more rest than I do.
6.30pm. After a series of area cleaning and cheer-leading, all the campers and facilitators headed off to Downtown East where there would be a closing ceremony and mini-concert and of course, to break fast and eat solid food. Two more hours before the 30 hour is up for everyone.
Inside the tent-like structure, the backdrop for the Finale Concert featuring prize presentation, performances and countdown ceremony. 1 hour before the Famine Camp is up but I was not feeling hungry at all. Maybe the hightened anticipation drowned out all other negative sensations.
Jack and Ray from Wala Wala performing songs like I'm Yours by Jason Miraz and The Tralala Love song from their first album. Their singing was fantastic and their guitar skills were equally astounding. That started to draw the tired campers out of their shells and warmed up the stage all right.
The dancers from NTU were doing their best with their dance moves to impress the audience with quick changes of dance costumes and slick modern moves to hip hop.
The star celebrity was of course, Zhang Hui Mei aka Amei, the reigning queen of pop music. She paired up with local songwriter David with three songs to entertain the campers.
By the end of the second song, almost all the 1000 campers, including those who had never heard of her before were already clapping, smiling or even dancing away in the audience seats or on the audience seats. Amei's ability to stir the crowd into action with her singing was par excellence and her jovial personality and friendliness onstage was equally mesmerizing. She sang and danced with every of the ten plus volunteers who went onstage and gave them equal opportunity to interact with her. Queen of Mandarin Pop - Of course. Airs of Queen of Mandarin Pop - unquestionably friendly. She even managed to coax the Principal of ACS Barker to croon onstage and drove the audience wilder with her interactions with them onstage.
Amei receiving a gift from one of the beneficiaries of the One Life Children Fund whilst the emcee was examing how beautiful the painting was.
The sing-a-long session with the volunteers onstage just before the countdown began.
Everyone congratulating themselves when the countdown was over. Time to celebrate, cheer and eat.
The campers right before the final announcements were given about where they should be heading to break their fast. Eager ears were all listening in.
The long, snaky queue to collect the long-awaited dinner to break fast for Famine Camp 2009. I was not hungry but I collected it anyway. I viewed it as a rite of passage that should be observed even though my group was waiting for me to sign their booklet so they could collect their 30 CIP points for attending and completing the camp.
9.30am. Downtown East. Whilst most of the campers were still busy eating and chatting the night away, I had to leave early, much to my reluctance, because I had to work on the following morning. Besides bading farewell and exchanging contacts with my group members, I shook hands with as many of the World Vision staff whom I was familiar with and worked with during the Famine Camp before I left to find a taxi home.
Well, that's the end of Famine Camp 2009 blog post for me.
You can read more about some of the more recent news coverage of it by following the links below if you wish to. Time to sleep. I need to make up for the lost sleep during the camp. Bye.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/434369/1/.html
http://news.sg.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3361970
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_386487.html
Facilitators' Pre-Camp Training at ACS Barker (23 June 2009 Saturday)
This is the room where it all started - I received briefings, training and instructions on the roles and responsibilities as a camp facilitator to lead groups of campers to educate, motivate and encourage them into action to reconstruct lives for the less fortunate children of the world who are currently plagued by poverty and HIV/AIDS. The Pre-Camp Training is a solid eight-hour event so I had to spend nearly the entire Saturday as a necessary step to becoming an efficient facilitator.
The first lunch provided by World Vision Singapore for the facilitators at the Pre-Camp Training - consisting of luncheon meat, cabbages and eggs with rice. Not too bad at all.
Those hairy legs belong to me and why my legs are tied together by a strap of rubbish plastic bag? Because I was designated as a Grandparent who suffered a leg injury. It's all part of the experiential activities where families (the campers) will have to live out 30 hours during the actual camp as 3rd world refugees escaping from a natural disaster, completed with missing and wounded family members and had to build shelters, seek medical help and find jobs to bring food to the starving members. Believe me, those with the leg injuries had to hobble around until they find the money to treat their injuries.
Yes, one of the jobs that those 3rd-world families can do is prostitution. Of course, it's just a simulated game but the point is there - most suffering families can be easily driven to desperation to try out anything that can bring in quick cash to feed themselves, no matter how dangerous or lowly the jobs are.
This is my "Identity Card" where I would need to show the Game Masters if I would to participate in any jobs or to seek medical attention. As you can see, my persona there had no education, had a leg injury, and only a strength of seven to do as much jobs before my strength ran out.
A quick shot of the chaos when the facilitators tried out the jobs. Everyone was confused - nobody knows which are the best jobs and what job hazards they entailed, nobody knows where to go to the various job stations. Chaos was deliberately created to simulate the conditions of the job markets in the 3rd world countries.Actual Famine Camp 2009 (5 June 2009 Friday to 6 June 2009 Saturday):
The time was 7.40am and I am at a MacDonald's restaurant at an undisclosed location in Singapore having my breakfast before I head off to ACS Barker Road with all my camping equipment. I had a lot of excitement and thoughts in my mind then so breakfast, though, leisurely, was not very appetizing that morning.
8.30am - I am already at the canteen of ACS Barker and there were already some World Vision staff running around with sheets of paper and a number of facilitators who were eating breakfast and getting ready for the Facilitators' Briefing at 9.30am. I spent my hour there checking my equipment and reading the day's newspapers and talking to some of the World Vision staff.
12.30pm - The final Pre-Camp briefing was done and World Vision gave an extra bonus to the Facilitators by providing lunch to them before the Famine Camp was to officially start at 2pm sharp. I tucked in heartily because it was the last solid food lunch I am going to have before the Famine Camp - cabbages, pork and eggs and a slice of honeydew.
1pm - The campers began to pour in to regiter themselves and they came from various secondary schools and junior colleges - totalling up to one thousand of them.
The Facilitators were given red T-shirts to wear whilst the campers black ones for Day One of Famine Camp. This was taken at around 1.30pm where campers and facilitators await the opening ceremony to start. I was seated with a RIJC girl who was bubbly enough to tell me how excited she was about the camp. I hope the campers would enjoy the camp and I was up to par to be the kind of camp facilitators that World Vision needed.
The stage backdrop for the opening ceremony - I CAN. I WILL. Make the difference. A non-sophisticated and straightforward slogan for Famine Camp 2009. I am going to do what I can. The time was already 1.45pm.
2.30pm. Campers were given the first major camp task of the day - build a shelter capable of accommodating all their family members with newspapers, cardboard and whatever they could scavenge in the simulated 3rd world conditions. With 1000 campers who are grouped into families which they are not familiar with, facilitators whom they had just met minutes ago, and a searing 30+ degrees in the hot afternoon sun, it was no mean feat. Some groups hastily constructed some flimsy structures and their lenient facilitators gave them the green light. Others, like mine, are determined to put up something weather-worthy before we end the task.
3pm - most of the campers are still struggling, figuring out how to get those cardboard boxes to work and make the best use of those flimsy newspapers. Already, the sun is taking a toll and most people are soaked to the skin with sweat and this was just the first hour of Famine Camp.
My group was quite slow in starting up the shelter because they were utterly confused by the noise, heat, chaos and the materials they had to use. It was a good hour before they finally got down to some decent construction work. I kept myself from directly providing any help to them because as instructed by the briefings, the family were supposed to struggle and experience all the frustrations and obstacles by themselves so no hand-holding was allowed.
3.30pm - I strolled around abit to see what other families had came up with - some of them were quite creative to roll up newspapers to use them as pillars. It was creative but personally, if I were to roll a bottle of mineral water against those pillars, the shelter would collapse immediately. 
3.40pm - my group finally finished their shelter. They overcame their difficulty by "stealing" tables and chairs from the classrooms in the school. Although it seemed unorthodox, it was 3rd world simulation and even stealing was considered as an option to secure resources needed for shelter, albeit illegal. I reminded them that it was a real risk faced by 3rd world countries' families to steal resources to build their homes and told them to return the furniture in good shape back into the classrooms immediately after the camp task was over.
3.45pm - I was particularly strict with my group because I did not want them to get the wrong idea that shelters could be constructed filmsily and be gotten away with in the real life situations with tough weather conditions. So I added further instructions by requiring all of them to perform the task of drinking water inside the shelter, thus preventing them to use their hands to support the shelter. Whilst they were drinking and distracted, I performed my quality control check of the shelter by throwing a full bottle of mineral water hard on the roof of the shelter and letting it roll across the entire roof of the shelter. The shelter's cardboard roofing held out and they were cleared to move on to the next task.
4pm - As the group moved on to the next location, I secretly hoped to myself that they would hold out and not balked out of the camp because it was difficult or tough. I followed them quietly to the next location, mind full of the instructions on how to lead them for the next camp activity.
5.10pm - Survival of the family rested on the ability to generate income to feed the family members. This was the farming station where campers had to pick up green peas in the midst of plants and soil to earn ice-cream sticks as money. The family with the highest number of sticks get extra presents at the end of the camp.
5.30pm - more campers flocked to the farming station and were concentrating hard at work to find those tiny green peas. The station had some small incidents of insect bites on the arms of at least two campers, one of them seeking help from me due to an itchy lump. I contacted the Programme Coordinator, Daniel, about it when I bumped into him and he radioed to check on the station while I moved on. Last check on the female camper - she was recovering well from the mysterious insect bite. I think it must be some insect which was disturbed from the hands prodding the plant hedges.
6.30pm - School was absolutely one of the life-savers in the game because if the family members were educated, they would be able to earn more ice-cream sticks and thus feed more people or heal more of their injured family members. However, you need money to study as well.
Within the classroom, campers get ready to be educated on the dangers and preventive measures of HIV/AIDS. In the background in white was Mandy, the Camp Coordinator , who was busy chatting with another female in formal business suit - most probably a sponsor representative observing the camp.
5.45pm - The Hospital where long queues were formed as numerous campers were branded with simulated work injuries - from head, eyes, arms, legs and the occasional "deaths". This was one of the toughest stations because many campers did not have the money to pay up or the Game Masters role-playing as medics and surgeons were deliberating giving the campers a hard time, simulating the harsh 3rd world medical conditions and situations of limited resources and unlimited demand for professional medical aid. Of course, there was a real-life paramedic right behind The Hospital station, whom I had the chance to interact and compare medical supplies with when I brought the female camper to seek medical attention. His general medical box was outfitted differently from my trauma medical pouch but the end objective was similar - preserve life, prevent condition from worsening and promote recovery. Thankfully, I did not encounter any serious medical conditions that require me to activate those trauma medicines and bandages. Hope the other paramedic did not either.
My group, happily basking in the airconditioning of the auditorium after their camp tasks for Day one. Some of them had to dress up in trash bags because they were simulated to be afflicted with HIV/AIDS when they did certain jobs which transmitted the disease to them. It was to create awareness about the social stigmatization of HIV/AIDS victims in the world. Morale was high within the group and even though they did not secure much money in the camp tasks, they were happy to learn as the de-briefing was done.
Whilst waiting for the evening camp tasks to start, they started playing some ice-breaking games to bond themselves further. I wished I could join them but that would mean missing out on announcements calling for facilitators for sudden briefings so I had to opt out and watch them play instead. With only one facilitator in each group, I could not miss out important announcements at all.
A special guest was invited to speak about HIV/AIDS and the campers were all ears listening to their stories and plights. I used to think most youths are totally apathetic about such things but with their attentive concentration shown on their faces then, I was proven wrong. Some of them do care. 
A candlelight vigil was held on the evening of Day One to mark the campers commitment to help others. My camera phone was not of superior quality and I did not want to switch on my flash and disturb the solemn atmosphere then. My other eye was on the lookout for potential fire hazard since fire was involved so the shot was one of the poorest in the entire camp photo album.
12am Day Two - the Facilitators were gathered in a small room awaiting the briefing for the coming day's activities involving newspapers and old clothings collection at Tampines and Pasir Ris areas. Most of us were exhausted by then and morale was only kept up by the airconditioning and exchanging of stories of how the first day went by with the campers. No shower facilities were available that night and by the time the briefing was over. It was nearly 1am. We got permission to use a separate room from the 1000 campers to sleep in and the facilitators tucked in as soon as we could. I slept from 1.30am to 5.30am that night.
9.30am. Location - Somewhere in Tampines. Here's my temporary command post as I perused through all the instructions, map locations and phone numbers for the umpteen time whilst waiting for my group members to return from their newspapers and old clothings collections from the blocks of flats designated to us. Although I am accompanied by a cameraman volunteer from World Vision, I am solely responsible for the safety of my group out there so I was pouring in alot more concentration and caution. Two large blisters on my feet also prevented me from running up and down those stairs unless it was an emergency so I stationed myself to watch over those collected items and gave myself the duty to help upload all those items when the lorry came over. The blisters hurt like hell but I dared not show them to the group lest their morale is dampened. I was very pleased with my group because even under the blistering heat, they kept their smiles up for as long as they could and collected much more than I expected. I was so proud of them.
12pm. In between the waiting, I talked to the nice cameraman who took a break from the photographing and I took a shot of the mineral water bottles of my group with names written on them. They were a hardworking bunch, not hesitating to lug down heavy newspapers at the requests of residents approaching the command post and even stopping to help a wheelchair-bound elderly to move to the latter's destination nearby.
2.45pm - Such work obviously took the toll on even the strongest, let alone a group of youths so by the time we reached back to the auditorium, they were totally exhausted, dozing off and yawning away. Even the most enthusiastic of the lot was sullen and withdrawn, grabbing as much rest as they could. I kept my silence throughout, knowing they needed much more rest than I do.
6.30pm. After a series of area cleaning and cheer-leading, all the campers and facilitators headed off to Downtown East where there would be a closing ceremony and mini-concert and of course, to break fast and eat solid food. Two more hours before the 30 hour is up for everyone.
Inside the tent-like structure, the backdrop for the Finale Concert featuring prize presentation, performances and countdown ceremony. 1 hour before the Famine Camp is up but I was not feeling hungry at all. Maybe the hightened anticipation drowned out all other negative sensations.
Jack and Ray from Wala Wala performing songs like I'm Yours by Jason Miraz and The Tralala Love song from their first album. Their singing was fantastic and their guitar skills were equally astounding. That started to draw the tired campers out of their shells and warmed up the stage all right.
The dancers from NTU were doing their best with their dance moves to impress the audience with quick changes of dance costumes and slick modern moves to hip hop.
The star celebrity was of course, Zhang Hui Mei aka Amei, the reigning queen of pop music. She paired up with local songwriter David with three songs to entertain the campers.
By the end of the second song, almost all the 1000 campers, including those who had never heard of her before were already clapping, smiling or even dancing away in the audience seats or on the audience seats. Amei's ability to stir the crowd into action with her singing was par excellence and her jovial personality and friendliness onstage was equally mesmerizing. She sang and danced with every of the ten plus volunteers who went onstage and gave them equal opportunity to interact with her. Queen of Mandarin Pop - Of course. Airs of Queen of Mandarin Pop - unquestionably friendly. She even managed to coax the Principal of ACS Barker to croon onstage and drove the audience wilder with her interactions with them onstage.
Amei receiving a gift from one of the beneficiaries of the One Life Children Fund whilst the emcee was examing how beautiful the painting was.
The sing-a-long session with the volunteers onstage just before the countdown began.
Everyone congratulating themselves when the countdown was over. Time to celebrate, cheer and eat.
The campers right before the final announcements were given about where they should be heading to break their fast. Eager ears were all listening in.
The long, snaky queue to collect the long-awaited dinner to break fast for Famine Camp 2009. I was not hungry but I collected it anyway. I viewed it as a rite of passage that should be observed even though my group was waiting for me to sign their booklet so they could collect their 30 CIP points for attending and completing the camp.
9.30am. Downtown East. Whilst most of the campers were still busy eating and chatting the night away, I had to leave early, much to my reluctance, because I had to work on the following morning. Besides bading farewell and exchanging contacts with my group members, I shook hands with as many of the World Vision staff whom I was familiar with and worked with during the Famine Camp before I left to find a taxi home.Well, that's the end of Famine Camp 2009 blog post for me.
You can read more about some of the more recent news coverage of it by following the links below if you wish to. Time to sleep. I need to make up for the lost sleep during the camp. Bye.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/434369/1/.html
http://news.sg.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3361970
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_386487.html
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