The first Yebo children’s camp
11th-12th July – Community Children Camp
During two days the volunteers have hosted the first Yebo children’s camp at UWEC for 20 community children. The aim of the camp was to allow the children to delve deeper into therapeutic activities and gain a better understanding of the connection between chimpanzees and humans. During the first day the children were able to closely observe the chimpanzees at UWEC by helping the keepers feed them fruit and also learn their individual stories. Play and learning was combined in a question and answer session where the children related the stories of the primates to their 
own backgrounds and traumas, which were often very similar.
After enjoying a nice lunch of beans, sweet potatoes and rice at the UWEC restaurant the children swam into lake Victoria for an afternoon swim before joining the volunteers in preparing the artwork for the upcoming show. Together the volunteers and children collected several boxes of shells from the beach. These will be cleaned, crushed and dyed for decoration on big plywood boards. Once the collecting of shells was done everyone sat down on 
the grass and engaged in therapeutic activities by drawing chimpanzees expressing particular feelings that the children themselves chose and had to explain.
In the evening, after the children had settled into their dorms and had a satisfactory dinner, a campfire was lit on the beach. The campfire started with a lot of hustle and bustle as the volunteers joined the children in playing Ugandan games, such as the cat and the rat, and singing songs in Luganda while also teaching the children the English 
versions. The first day of the camp concluded with a fascinating and inspiring talk about the role of rangers in national parks by Francis, the head of security at UWEC.
The second day began with a turbulent boat journey across lake Victoria to Ngamba Island, the chimpanzee sanctuary. While half of the volunteers stayed behind to continue preparing artwork, Alice, Laura, Trish, Helena, Kay and Kajsa and all the children together with Patrick braved the bad weather for two hours on a ‘slow-boat’, singing and huddling together. The 
aim of this trip was to give the children inspiration for conservation-focused songs to be performed during the show.
Once on the island Philip, the guide, gave the children a tour of the impressive facilities. This included a decompose toilet, a kitchen with an energy saving stove and the chimpanzee holding facilities that are used for sleeping at night-time as well as for brain-stimulating activities and research at day-time. Following this the children listened to a motivational talk by Zenox, during which they were told that they ‘will
become what they believe’. This gave good results as the volunteers and the children subsequently composed a song and a poem about the importance of conserving the environment for our future.
After enjoying a lunch of peanut butter-sandwiches and biscuits the children joined the primate keepers during the afternoon feeding of the chimpanzees. This enabled a closer study of the particular behaviours of the primates in an as close to natural environment as possible. The feeding was followed by a drawing competition that saw everyone, children and volunteers alike, awarded with sweets that had been generously donated by a young German boy.
The true harvest of the first Yebo children’s camp was made visible during the boat journey back from Ngamba Island. Children, volunteers and staff all joined together to ensure that the songs fully carried forward the conservational messages that had been conveyed at UWEC and Ngamba. Meanwhile the volunteers that stayed behind had made great progress with preparing the artwork, including making the Yebo logo out of bottle labels!
By Emily, July 19, 2011 @ 12:56 pm
This is absolutely AMAZING! What a great idea – it’s so lovely to read that not only is the work that we started continuing but that it’s grown bigger and better! Although I am jealous that I’m not there to help out and enjoy the camp fire! x
By Oona Mitchell, July 19, 2011 @ 5:19 pm
I never knew it was possible to pack so much into such a short time.Its inspirational what you are all doing!You really are improving young lives,with all your fine work,and the time,patience and love you are sharing.Well done to all!
By Isabella Sheldon, July 20, 2011 @ 3:56 pm
Thanks your for help. Saying and doing are two things