News Associate Editor
Charlie Rosenberg ‘09 and Phil Risman ‘08 have started a club called Choate World Camps. The founders’ goal “is to help promote AIDS awareness throughout the Choate community and to help raise money and gather necessities for South Africa..” The goal of the more general World Camps is to raise money for the World Camps Organization, which is non-profit, and through that, spread awareness about the AIDS and HIV epidemic spreading through South Africa right now. World Camps provides a camp experience for children who are either affected by HIV or AIDS themselves or have an infected family member.
World Camps is located in South Africa, at a site outside of Johannesburg in the Magaliesburg Mountain area. It is here that Camp Sizanani takes place. “Sizanani” is a Zulu word for “help each other”. Six camps are held each year for a minimum of ten days each. Boys’ and girls’ camps alternate, bringing together one hundred and ten children for each session and around thirty counselors. The children range from ten to fifteen years old and are largely from the Soweto area.
There are many different activities for the kids involved at this camp. The camp provides a place for the children to play, relax, and meet kids in similar situations. A typical schedule for participants would includes sports, drums and dancing, gardening, arts and crafts, swimming, depending on the season, and life skills– proper nutrition and hygiene, HIV and AIDS awareness and prevention, healthy sexuality, prevention of gender stereotypes. These programs of awareness and prevention are imperative to these children because they are not taught in school. In addition,
On the Choate front at the moment the presidents, Risman and Rosenberg, are trying to get the director, Philip Lilienthal, of World Camps to come speak at Choate. It is still pending whether or not it would be an all school special program or simply a speaker for the club members and students who wish to attend. At the moment the club has fourteen active members who attend every meeting. In addition to the speaker, the founders are planning to raise money, their goal being one thousand dollars, by putting on a soccer tournament. This tournament will charge students five dollars to pick a team and play. The Varsity soccer team is also helping to organize the event. An incentive to play, and win in this tournament is that the school is considering donating “get out of Sunday D” passes for the winning teams. This event is planned to take place on February 11th.
This new club was formed in order to spread awareness around campus and our community, but more importantly, as Risman said, “to people and kids affected by AIDS.”
