Background
The GNRC Sri Lanka Team organized their third Children’s Camp at the Trincomalee Sarvodaya District Centre (Eastern Province) from the 08 to the 10 February with the participation of sixty five kids representing nine villages of the Trincomalee District.

The Children gathered on the 08th (Friday) after school at the Centre and had the inaugural session around 4.00 p.m. in the evening where they had a couple of ice breakers and a short introduction to the camp.

Special
As Trincomalee is a major war torn area in Sri Lanka, it’s extremely especial the meeting of twenty each from three different communities; Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese. The other speciality was that the Sarvodaya District Centre was next to a Trincomalee Naval Camp, and there was live firing in the near by sea at the time of inaugural session on the 08th evening.

It was quite a big question mark for the participants as they may have started to wonder what we were planning to do. We later realize their thoughts while streaming through the photographs captured by our GNRC Team members.

As the words “respect”, “responsibility”, “empathy” and “reconciliation” were the key words for the camp and once the GNRC Team brought the kids to a level where they started understanding what each word mean, they started to build on from the point we stopped and they simply went forward by adding more value to it. They depicted what they grasped when they acted out small skits and role plays. The kids them selves realized that every person should have those qualities in order for this world to be a peaceful and unique place, thereby making it, a place where everyone would love to live in.

Similar to the previous children’s camps held in Wallawaya and Ratnapura, the life tree exercise gave them a insight to their own lives and also made them comfortable being safe with in each other as every one of them were open and honest and understanding the other person by getting in to their shoes, but also this was quite a huge experience for the GNRC Team as when they started sharing their real life experience of the war and feelings of fear of loosing their own parents, community and friends.

One more thing special about the whole camp was the GNRC Team it self stared building up on our previous experiences of the camp held in Wallawaya and Ratnapura, but taking the whole experience to totally different level.

The whole group was also taken to a Hindu Temple near by for a religious observance.

The Cultural night was done in a bit of grand scale than both the two previous camps, coordinated by the children them selves was very well organized, its a fact that they (both children and the GNRC Team) learnt a lot from each other.

To have a look at the photos please click here
For more information please email us at n.muthaliph@gnrc.net

Other Children’s Camps conducted under the Ethics Promotion Campaign;