Dear Friends of Sizanani and WorldCamps,

We completed the final two of our three camps with the EW Hobbs Elementary School in Soweto. This represented a departure from our normal practice of reaching out in the community to select children from orphanages, other youth groups, and from among the children of patients in the support groups of our partner, HIVSA, a large psycho-social AIDS Clinic in Soweto.

We had some concerns about enrolling children from a single school.

• Would they be so familiar with each other that they would act out at camp?
• Were they going to be concerned about how they look to each other and resist the camp culture of participating without regard to prior skill?
• We had a concern that the teachers who participated in the camp with children from their classes might find an uncomfortable familiarity from the students when they returned from camp.
• Would we be ignoring some of our core constituency by enrolling children without a demonstrable "need" and without a showing of how and whether they are affected by HIV/AIDS?

The camps went beautifully. Our concerns were unfounded on the first three. While some of the children were from more advantaged backgrounds than our usual campers, their needs were as great. The anecdotes coming from the life skills classes and the bunks were just as shocking as at previous camps.

One of the most important things we are doing is getting the children to realize what constitutes abusive behavior in the home or school. One girl mentioned that she was beaten at home, but she deserved it because she had kissed 6 boys.

During a life skills class in Abusive Behaviors, one girl whispered to her friend because she was embarrassed to ask it herself: "Is it abuse if my father has sex with me and gives me 20 rand ($3.00) not to tell anyone."

These two events are shocking in themselves, but we are providing the children with the information, for the first time, that these are not acceptable parent/caregiver behaviors and they do not need to accept it. This has been a breakthrough in opening their eyes, a major part of their transformational process.

We had a lot of visitors at camp this June and July. Heidi Gore, a friend and camp parent from Winnebago, was in Johannesburg for an international boys school conference. She and a friend, also from St. Bernard's in New York, visited for an afternoon. I had met Neal Kamsler, from Allen Stevenson School, when I spoke there last spring. He was also nice enough to make the trip to camp. He even slept over. Kip Buitoni is involved with film-making and bikers bringing medical supplies to Africa. She stopped by to take photographs and get a feel for what we are doing.

Tim Cunningham and Mollie Stone led groups from the U.S. Tim led a group of teens from Windsor Mountain International in New Hampshire on a work-study program in South Africa. We were their first stop and they spent much of the day with our campers. They said they would have been happy to stay for their entire time in South Africa, and our campers loved the contact with them. Maybe we can get them back.

Mollie leads a children's choir in Chicago and was looking for new music, among other things. She and her group of 7 did a lot of photographing and recording of songs from the campers.Tim is also part of Clowns Without Borders. His friend, Garth, who is a clown and a juggler, came out to camp with his family to look around. He returned for a half-day and taught juggling to the campers.

Dr. Brian Brink, Chief Medical Officer at Anglo-American Corporation visited and spoke to the girls in life skills after having been impressed by what he saw in their class. He was quite moved by the seeing our two instructors putting out rather sensitive information about sexuality and having the campers get it without giggling or otherwise showing any embarrassment. In speaking to them after the class, he praised their participation and encouraged them to keep learning. He told them that 31% of South African females are HIV+ by the time they are 21. It was clear to him that our girls were going to be avoiding being part of that group.

I have attached the report made by Alroy Plaatjes, the Deputy Principal of the EW Hobbes School, on the impact of camp on the children at school. In view of the uncertainty of many of the teachers and administrators to having their children attend camp, the report is particularly heartwarming and touching. I hope it gives you a view from another source and you can appreciate the support this engenders at the local level.

I cannot begin to tell you how appreciative we are for your support. Combined with the wonderful volunteers who come from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, France, and the Dominican Republic, this provides the core of what keeps us going. Please continue with your generous contributions and we will keep up our efforts.

Remember to register with iGive.com, a service that is free to you and provides a percentage of your online purchases from 700 sellers to a charitable institution of your choice. We hope you will choose us.

Please ask your friends in the federal government's employ to consider making a request that their Combined Federal Campaign pledge be designated to WorldCamps, #9275. Thanks very much for your generous support and for being so encouraging.

Warm regards,

Phil