Good Practice Examples/Global Practices/Camp Style Activitites

GoTeach Camp style activity Case Study

General overview

Objective

This case study was designed with the aim of collecting good case practices to run camp style activities in the framework of the GoTeach programme. The results can be used as guidelines for organizing and realizing camp style activities for youth from SOS Children’s Villages. Please be aware that these are only examples and suggestions and that every country should realize the project in a way it fits best to its individual situation. By bringing together different approaches from three different countries of the GoTeach partnership the responsible persons should also feel encouraged to exchange experiences and work together.

Methodology

The topic of this case study was discussed and decided during the 2016 Global GoTeach meeting that took place in Vienna, Austria. Here the global team discussed that a topic of great interest for all regions is the camp style type of activity that the countries in Asia Pacific are organizing. Therefore, we chose to interview these countries and have a deeper look into: Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The concept, agenda and style of delivery are different from country to country, but what is the same is the fact that this is an event organized for a group of youth (usually around 30-40) over a course of consecutive days (2-3 days) in which they go through a flow of activities with a specific objective connected to GoTeach.

In order to collect information, we proceeded to have interviews with each country individually, including both DHL and SOS CV representatives. We created one questionnaire based on our inputs and the inputs of the regional coordinators, and based on it we ran interviews of about 60 minutes with each country. The results are elaborated in this report, with a focus view on each country and how they manage their own version of the camp style activity.

Benefits

There are multiple benefits in organizing camp style activities, from what we could observe during the interviews. Firstly, the greatest benefit is that through such an extensive event GoTeach can address a new target group, youth from remote areas that many times do not have access to the same opportunities as youth from the villages around the big cities. Moreover, another benefit in organizing such an activity is that it can address a larger audience (having 30-40 youth involved), while at the same time being a consistent activity, due to the high time investment (around 2-3 days of full agenda). Because of the prolonged time of the activity, youth can also get to feel comfortable with the volunteers, open up about their dreams and work on their career options. Given the fact that the agendas are based on a flow, the camp style activity carries the youth through a logical, step by step journey that has a clear objective. Such an activity also gives the opportunity to see the needs of youth first-hand and be able to adapt the programme accordingly – youth are invited to give feedback at the end of the events and based on their feedback the next year’s events are being shaped.

Recommendations

Based on our interviews with the selected countries, but as well as other ideas for further development of such an activity, here are some suggestions and recommendations in case you are considering organizing a camp style activity*.

• Get early involvement of senior management to clarify time regulations (do people get time off, does it have to be on the weekend?);
• Ensure good communication between SOS CV and DHL and involvement of youth to meet their needs;
• Consider checking the expectations and needs of youth during the process of creating the agenda;
• Check early if there are enough employees willing to volunteer in an activity with high workload in preparation;
• Transportation has to be organized in time (people and material);
• Define clear selection criteria so that youth really has added value out of the activity;
• Consider offering the camp style activity for youth that have been previously involved in other GoTeach activities;
• Offer interested youth following activities and also job shadowing or internships at DHL;
• Involve SOS CV in the follow up to see if youth get jobs afterwards;
• Calculate how many volunteers you will need on the location, considering the number of youth and the costs of transportation (Indonesia is using a quota of around 4 youth/volunteer)

*Please take the following points as suggestions. One of our guiding principles is local ownership, therefore the camp style activity can be adapted according to your own needs.*

Country Short Overview

	Indonesia	Thailand	Vietnam
Time of activity	3 days	3 days (before) 2 days (from 2016 on)	3 days
Recurrence & location	Once a year SOS Children’s Villages, in one village	Four times a year SOS Children’s Villages, in four different villages	Three times a year SOS Children’s Villages, in 3 regions
Preparation time needed	3 months	3 to 6 months	3 months
Resources	8 DHL volunteers (on site)+ more volunteers supporting SOS CV staff from the village 60% of annual funding for GoTeach Indonesia Session materials	20 DHL volunteers/ village SOS CV staff from the village External partners Travel agency for transportation Finances from the regional GoTeach budget Session materials	30 DHL volunteers SOS CV staff from the villages Finances from the regional GoTeach budget Session materials
# of youth involved	>30 youth/ year	40 youth / event = 160 youth this year	30 – 40 youth/event = 90 – 120 youth this year
# of volunteers involved	8 DHL volunteers on site + others supporting beforehand	80 DHL volunteers Involved in all 4 camps	30 volunteers (but only a few attending the event)

GoTeach Indonesia - Dream Camp

Hard facts

The camp carried out in Indonesia is called Dream Camp and has the purpose of showing youth their diverse opportunities in life, while making them think about their future. The whole activity lasts for three days and two nights, out of which only one full day is at an actual camp and it usually happens during Q3 of the year, as beforehand they have other activities that build up to it, like for example a public speaking workshop. The event takes place in one of the SOS Children’s Villages in Indonesia, being focused on remote areas of the country rather than on the big cities. The reason for this choice of location is that in these areas usually the opportunities are fewer for youth, as DHL and other companies are not present. This way, DHL want to transfer them their knowledge so that youth could be able to start their own businesses.

The camp is involving a total of more than 30 youth every year, and for this 8 volunteers are participating in the actual camp. What is important to note is that more volunteers are supporting in the months before the event, for preparation, but due to the high transportation costs, only 8 of them go to the actual camp. An important selection criterion for youth is their age, and educators from the village are also consulted for their opinion on who to participate. Moreover, youth from the Family Strengthening Programme are also involved.

Preparation and responsibilities

DHL and SOS Children’s Village are in regular exchange during the preparation process and have shared responsibilities. The preparation starts around three months in advance before the camp takes place. The steps are as follow:

• decide together on the activity proposal;
• send the activity proposal to the Regional Office for approval;
• build the agenda and choosing the content;
• start the coordination between the different Business Units, in order to align activities with objectives;
• start internal coordination, to ensure that volunteers can leave for the activity (usually done around 2 months in advance) - this is highly important as the camp takes place during the workdays, therefore the working hours need to be approved by the supervisors;
• start arranging the logistics and accommodation, with the help of SOS Children’s Villages staff;
• prepare the demographic data of participating youth, deciding on gender, age, and other criteria that will be used to select the youth, done by DHL and SOS CV;
• select the youth that will participate in the camp, done by SOS Children’s Villages;
• ensure all volunteers are having the training on the Code of Conduct, before working with the youth.

When it comes to dividing the responsibilities, DHL is mainly responsible for the coordination with the Business Units and for the communication with the top management, but as well for preparing all the materials for the camp. On the side of SOS Children’s Villages, the main responsibilities are accommodation, meals and general logistics at the location where the event takes place, plus the before mentioned selection of youth.

Feedback is being collected in an informal way, asking youth and volunteers about their experience and opinion, however there is no written feedback used to evaluate the activity. No follow up has been done so far in previous years, but the team is looking into how they could implement it.

Resources needed

Apart from the 8 volunteers attending the camp, there are also other volunteers supporting in the months before the event. Moreover, SOS CV staff is supporting as well at the location. When it comes to financial resources, they use the annual funding from the regional GoTeach budget for the activity; actually, as this is one of the biggest activities of GoTeach Indonesia, 60% of the annual funding goes into it. There is no other organization or stakeholder involved for financial support, because the partnership is still very young and they prefer to first develop it better, and then involve others as well.

Other resources needed are:

• Communication tools (banner),
• Session materials (dream board materials, career inspiration materials, etc.) All materials are shipped beforehand as it is a remote area.

Additionally, the GoTeach Indonesia team organizes inside DHL a fundraising campaign with money and in-kind donations prior to the event.

Content and activities

The GoTeach Indonesia team starts building the agenda around 2-3 months before the event takes place. The process is done together, starting from DHL putting together a proposed agenda that is then being sent to SOS Children’s Villages, in order to check if the activities are useful for the youth.

The agenda revolves around giving youth the space to create a dream and find out what they want in their future, focusing on their soft skills. Also included in the agenda are:

• spaces where youth can get inspiration from others to see what is possible to achieve in their lives, moving then into understanding better what is it that they want to achieve and starting to build a plan on how to get there
• a segment around communication and marketing, as the programme tackles remote areas, where the opportunities for youth to have an employer are limited, therefore preparing them for entrepreneurship. This way youth can learn how to create and market their own business that can be around the natural resources that can be found in the area.

The agenda is the same for all youth involved. As a result of the activities, the youth come out with a dream board to keep in mind their future plans as motivation and inspiration.

Advices

It is very important to have knowledge about the youth, their backgrounds and general demography, this way being able to adapt the content to their needs. Also, a strong advice is to collaborate close together, on one side between SOS and DHL, and on the other side, between all the different Business Units of DHL. Another recommendation from the Indonesia team is to involve the volunteers from the beginning, in order for them to know what is happening and what are they expected to do.

The team of Indonesia actively recommends doing a camp activity as they have very positive feedback from both youth and volunteers – for youth it is a rather intense experience, where they have the proper time needed to explore their dreams and come with a plan to achieve them, and for the volunteers it is interesting to see how the youth live in remote areas as it is very different from their own lives.

The team managed in the past year to collect qualitative videos and photos that are edited by external partners and financed from the GoTeach budget – a very good case practice to showcase the activities of the partnership and a visual method to demonstrate the impact such a programme has on the youth (if you are interested in getting this video, please contact us).

GoTeach Thailand - Ton Kla Camp

Hard facts

The camp carried out in Thailand is named “Ton Kla” which means Young Plant in English. It is a career oriented camp designed to boost up employability for SOS youth. In previous years Ton Kla Camp was a three-day activity that took place in Bangkok, where all the youth from different villages came together. From 2016 on the model changed and it will be carried out on one weekend in the different SOS Children’s Villages. . So there are four smaller Ton Kla Camps this year. Next year there will be a follow-up camp where the villages come together in Bangkok again and focus on more advanced topics. 20 volunteers are helping per village, where 40 young people can participate. The participants have to be at least 15 years old. The idea is to target senior students who are soon to be graduated or going through transition of studying to working.

Preparation and responsibilities

DHL and SOS Children’s Villages are in regular exchange during the preparation process and have shared responsibilities. The preparation starts around three to six months before the camp takes place (past years three, now six). On DHL side there are four people (one per BU) responsible for the organization of the event. From SOS CV around five people, both from Family Based Care and Family Strengthening Program, are involved. Both teams of DHL and SOS CV work on the activity internally but meet once a month to discuss it all together. The steps to prepare the camp are as follows:

• set the dates of the camp;
• discussion between the organization team with the management and the village directors to check the dates;
• communication within DHL by the DHL team, to inform all employees and recruit volunteers;
• create the budget and covering the travel logistics to the camps;
• create the agenda of the camp, done by DHL with the help of SOS CV, who represents the interest and needs of the youth, taking care that the content of the activity is useful for them;
• brief the volunteers by the DHL team and organize Code of Conduct training;
• create the materials for the camp by DHL;
• recruit the youth that fits to the program, done by SOS CV;
• coordinate accommodation and restaurants at the location, done by SOS CV.

After the event took place both teams meet for a follow up. Based on the experience the agenda and content of the next camp gets adjusted.

Resources needed

Apart from the organizational team and the volunteers there are also some external partners involved. A travel agency takes care of the flights and the hotel booking. Also people from the area, where the camp takes place, help with recommendations e.g. how to reach the places best. DHL develops material for the activities, which is printed at the office and brought to the camp in their luggage to save costs. All the other expenses are covered by the GoTeach budget from the regional office.

Content and activities

With the new model the content has been separated in two levels. At the first camp in the villages basic skills will be transmitted while the following camp will focus on more advanced topics. In the first round the activities focus on soft skills like social manner, personal motivation, successful habits but also input like expectation of employer, some English vocabulary, how to do an interview and maybe CV writing. For some topics external experts are invited to support the team, e.g. an entrepreneur, a psychologist, a politician. The style used for the activities differs. There are speeches, workshops, ice breaking activities, games etc. Every participant is having the same schedule, but the activities are carried out in smaller groups. Sometimes there are tasks that the youth does in competition between the groups.

Attached to this report you can find the detailed agenda of the Ton Kla Camp as well as the booklet to get a better idea.

Advices

It is very important that DHL and SOS CV commit to this activity. Only if both sides are contributing to the preparation it can be a successful activity. The exchange between the teams is a critical success factor. Frequent meetings with both DHL and SOS CV (at least once a month) and inside each team (more frequently) are necessary. Another critical point is the involvement of the youth. The participants have to be asked for feedback so that the agenda can be adjusted to their needs.

The team of Thailand actively recommends doing a camp activity as a huge audience can be reached. The camp is also a great opportunity to get information about the youth. Based on their needs you can then offer them other following activities (e.g. job shadowing, internships).

GoTeach Vietnam – Career Counseling Days

Hard facts

The camp style activity in Vietnam is called “Career Counseling Days”. As it is separated by regions, the activity takes place three times a year. Each village can send from five to ten youth to the activity and in total around 30 to 40 young people can participate per each region (which gives a total of 90 – 120 youth reached in total). The target group is boys and girls at the age of 17 and above, they should have a higher education level like high school or university and be graduating soon. They come together at one SOS CV village per region and participate in the “Career Counseling Days” for three days. While there are 30 volunteers engaged in the preparation process, only a few are attending the camp.

Preparation and responsibilities

As it is a three-day activity the preparation takes longer than other GoTeach activities. About three weeks of work are spent on “Career Counseling Days”. Some of the preparation is done earlier as it has to be prepared for the annual GoTeach plan. Therefore, the steps to prepare the Career Counselling Days are as follows:

• prepare the general concept, together with the annual plan, at the beginning of the year;
• create the agenda, done by DHL (the material is aligned with the one from Dream Camp in Indonesia and Ton Kla Camp in Thailand, as the teams shared the documents between each other to get inspiration)
• share content of the camp with SOS CV staff to ensure that the need of youth is addressed;
• involve the volunteers, brief them and organize the training on the Code of Conduct;
• select the youth, done by SOS CV;
• arrange the travel of the youth to the camp, which can be by plane, train or bus, done by SOS CV
• arrange the transportation needed during the activity, organized by DHL;
• participants give feedback with a questionnaire after the event
• evaluate the activity and adjust for next year, based on the feedback.

Resources needed

As mentioned earlier around three weeks of preparation are needed to organize the “Career Counseling Days”. Around 30 volunteers are involved. The tasks are clearly defined and separated by employees: some of the employees work on the content, others on the logistics and others on the communication; also some of them are only involved as special guests (for example top management), and they are coming to the event only for a limited time. Concerning needed materials the team organizes flipcharts and slides, brings laptops and material for the activities. All expenses are covered by the GoTeach budget, even the travel costs of the participants. All youth is accommodated in the village. It is important to note also that the whole activity takes place during working hours for volunteers; therefore it is crucial to have the top management approval beforehand.

Content and activities

All participants follow the same agenda during the activity. Some exercises and visits are done in smaller groups to make it more efficient and effective. Besides the DHL volunteers and top managers as special guests, also external tutors are involved to help the youth with some topics. The activity starts with ice breaking games to create a good and open atmosphere as the youth is quite shy in the beginning. The content block starts with an introduction into the annual GoTeach plan. At the following career talk the youth gets the opportunity to create their own ideas of what they would like to do. Also they practice CV writing and how to behave in a job interview. In role play activities the youth gets confronted with situations they are going to face in their career path. On the second day the group visits a DHL facility to explore different job opportunities in the logistics sector. The third day is used to review the activities of the first day, as the youth now has new ideas after the impressions of the visit as DHL. Stories are shard and the whole activity gets wrapped up with a feedback and closing session.

Advices

In the preparation process the communication is a critical success factor. On the one hand there are different levels and different BUs involved, which aren’t always easy to reach. On the other hand SOS CV needs to be well informed, so that they can follow the agenda.

For the beginning of the camp some time and space should be planned for ice breaking activities. The SOS youth can be quite shy and it is important to make them feel comfortable to be able to open up and fully participate in the activities.

Chapter lead	Martin Schmid