Gavar Special School

From June 11 to 14, Gavar Special School and the Lots of Sun Foundation were able to put on an excellent Green Camp for Gavar area students. What is green Camp you may ask? Well, Green Camp is an environmental awareness camp focusing on teaching children about the world of earth, trees, and animals that live in Armenia.

Last year Gavar Special School had a Green Camp in conjunction with Peace Corps, but this year we have had it without the support of Peace Corps. The camp has been a great success. The camp broke the stigmas of exclusion that Gavar Special School carries due to the post-Soviet culture.

Participating children were taught that not all the students that go the Gavar Special School are weird, strange or crazy. Area students learned that Gavar Special School is a welcoming place with many caring people and the students who attend maybe different but do not warrant exclusion. The camp’s staff is hopeful that terms such as “stupid” or “crazy” has left the lexicon of the participating children and they realize that students of Gavar Special School just need a bit more assistance to learn as they do.

The volunteerism from the Gavar community was amazing! We had more staff than anticipated, and they were comparable to many paid American camp staffs, if not better. The local university students came to help during their finals week which is a major accomplishment as volunteerism is lacking the culture.

We had 44 campers and they were from all over Gavar and even from a few villages, some of the students walked for half and hour to come to the camp because they loved the opportunity to learn about the environment. A small portion of these were students of Gavar Special School. This was a wonderful experience for the staff of Gavar Special School as well as the local community to have a camp that was focused on environment and held in Gavar Special School which allowed for the breaking down of cultural separation barriers.

Special thanks to St. James Catholic Church and family and friends of Peace Corps Volunteer Kayte Williams. Your donations allowed for the purchase of camp materials, snacks and wonderful t-shirts with the slogan “Keep Armenia Clean!”