Creative Recovery Summer Camp
2022 Creative Recovery Summer Camp
For 3 weeks in August, we hosted our Creative Recovery Summer Camp (CRSC) working with 18 Bequian youth between the ages of 8 and 14 in a number of creative art forms: dancing, drumming, painting, poetry, yoga and meditation.
We believe in building creative confidence across all ages. This camp focused on the youth of today, aiding campers in self-empowerment, evolving their mental and emotional characters, developing life skills and introducing them to different forms of creativity. To culminate the CRSC, we hosted a Youth Show on Friday, August 26th at De Reef. What a special experience!
Each of our campers showcased what they learned with us. The performances included yoga, singing, drumming, individual poems, poetic dance dramas, and affirmations; all while wearing fun handcrafted costumes. To the youths: You were all incredible and should be very proud of yourselves! We urge each of you to hold on to the valuable lessons learned throughout the camp, and the friendships made.
Following these youth acts, we had solo performances by The Hub Singers (all of whom are graduates of our ‘Higher Vibrations’ music workshop). Thank you all for singing! It was such a beautiful way to end the show, and it is always heartwarming to see the evolution of your gifts and performance styles. Stay tuned on our socials for more details on how the show went!
Thank you to everyone that was involved in making this a success! This camp would not have been possible without the financial and in-kind support of our funders. Thank you to the Grenadines Initiative, our camp’s largest sponsor. Thank you also to everyone who generously donated to our @globalgiving crowdfunding campaign ‘Creating and Dreaming Big on Bequia’. Thank you to Mac’s Pizza & Kitchen for the free lunches every Friday, Bequia Threadworks for providing support in making the costumes, and De Reef for allowing us to use their space! We greatly appreciate these generous contributions, and we know the youths do too!
Conception
Drawing inspiration from the needs of our communities after the La Soufriere volcanic disruption in April 2021, we had several discussions with our team and community members about creating a safe space for Bequia youth to integrate with displaced youth from the mainland. Out of these collaborative brainstorming sessions, the Creative Recovery Summer Camp (CRSC) was conceived. Today, it is the only project that has not yet manifested in action at The Hub.
While our initial fundraising efforts were disrupted, we did not let that stop us from visioning a wholesome, creative and fun way to bring empowered, joyful and knowledge-based content and activities to our youth.
The Creative Recovery Summer Camp aims to be an integral and annual offering that we produce for two months over summer, offering Bequia youth a powerful way to integrate holistic development and knowledge building in a safe space. The programming in CRSC addresses social cohesion grows communication and developmental skills while highlighting the need for mentorship and leadership training. Youth will learn about Bequia’s rich and diverse history, art-making, storytelling, drumming, dancing, poetry, the natural world and breath and body movement.
We aim to start this project in July 2022 and be a recurring offering each year. Our crowdfunding campaign on GlobalGiving aims to raise funds to produce and deliver this rich program to our communities.
