Camp and Club
Spread GLOW
Ideals Locally
By Kerry Plath
new friends, learned new skills, and put on an
excellent show for their parents. Camp week
came to a close with a game day in the park
and new Facebook friends for all.
Although camp finished in early July,
the women and girl leaders of Gostivar have
remained active and taken on new challenges.
Gostivar recently began a local Club GLOW
with the help of the local NGO, YouThink,
and the encouragement of the national Camp
GLOW. Gostivar Club GLOW is off to a great
start and constantly gaining new members.
There are also plans to have a fourth annual
Gostivar Girls Leadership Camp in 2011. New
leaders, fun, games, music, and teambuilding
are in the future for Gostivar’s young women.
“Girls Making a Difference” was the
motto spread throughout Gostivar, Macedonia
during a hot summer week in 2010. Twenty
campers, aged 12 to 15, participated in the
third annual Gostivar Girls Leadership Camp
(GGLC) from June 28 through July 3.
The
girls were guided by ten local women serving
as coordinators and counselors in addition
to Peace Corps volunteers Jane Clark and
myself, Kerry Plath.
GGLC was established in 2008 by Peace
Corps volunteers and many of the same local
women who planned the camp this year. The
camp had proven to be a positive experience
for many young girls in the past, so Jane and I
decided to keep the tradition alive by helping
to organize the third annual GGLC. As most
of us know, planning in Macedonia can take
longer than predicted, and many meetings.
RPCVs Jacklyn O’Hara and Carolyn Reinhardt,
with the help of many local supporters, left
us a thorough camp manual that proved to be
helpful in all aspects of planning. The manual
provided information on everything from local
donors to a camp outline. At times it seemed
we would never pull off organizing the camp
in time and getting actual participants, but
with the cooperation of GGLC’s great staff,
everything came together at the last minute.
The kindness of Gostivar’s Culture House for
donating a room for the week and fellow PCV
Candice Wiggum’s generous donation were
also key to making the camp a success.
Once the behind-the-scenes planning
was out of the way, the fun began. Each day
camp began at 10AM and was completed by
3PM with a kifli and yogurt break midday to
fuel the participants.
Most days included
a team-building activity, a sport activity, a
lesson on nutrition, environment, diversity,
or a similar topic, as well as an hour to
prepare for the Parent Dance and Fashion
Show at the end of the week.
Counselors
and coordinators taught all of the lessons in Top: Group picture of campers of Gostivar GLOW.
an interactive manner that empowered and Bottom: Two girls doing an activity during Spanish,
encouraged the young campers to be leaders
in their communities.
The campers made one of many electives offered at the day camp.