The Piarist presence in Atauro Island (East Timor) organized at the end of this year 2022 the last summer camp activity for the forty-seven children and young people who have accompanied this time. The monitors of this activity were the Piarist community and five volunteers: an acolyte, a diocesan brother and three of our tourism students. They were the ones who facilitated the module and the learning activities.
The 47 students did all the activities to the fullest, as well as our two candidates who also participated in the whole meeting. It lasted for a week full of fun and educational activities. The animation of the meeting was organised by the acolyte.
Three learning modules were organised: the first one on human formation, which was given by Father Didimus, accompanied by Brother Juaquin; the second module on sciences developed by Brother Jaimito and accompanied by a young man in the process of Piarist vocational accompaniment and a student of the School of Tourism; finally, the third module was on Arts given by Brother Julio and supported by four acolytes. The three modules were developed over the course of a week in an atmosphere of learning and joy in discovering the world through the human sciences, faith, and the arts.
The whole group was divided into three groups. Class began each day at 8:30 a.m. with all three classes running simultaneously. Each session lasted one hour, and then they rotated to the next module. The theme of the day and of the three modules were related to the theme of Christian formation. The classes ended each day at 11:45 am. After school, we took the participants of the summer camp to our community for a well-deserved and hearty lunch. The food was cooked by four volunteers and one of our aspirants. The participants of the meeting contributed vegetables to prepare them for the lunch. Thus together they contributed to a beautiful moment of sharing.
The summer camp ended with a meeting in the Piarist community, which was attended by the children and young people as well as their families. The celebration started at 6:00 in the evening. The children performed a series of demonstrations of what they had learned during the week. First they performed cultural dance, followed by modern dance, painting and theatrical performance. In addition, the volunteers provided the programme’s animation to bring the joy of the meeting among the participants.
Immediately after the planned programme activities, we had dinner together with the children’s parents. Finally, after dinner we had a cultural evening where the parents also participated in the traditional dance that they call “dahur”. This celebration lasted until 9:00 in the evening.
