This year, for the second time in a row, GTV's summer camp took place during the weekend 27-28 of June, in the elementary school of An Chau, in the district of Son Dong, Vietnam, with the children of the Sponsorship program (SAD).

It's an important initiative organized for the children, that allows us to get to know them better and at the same time help them understand that Italy, their Italian families, supports them; in this edition participated 85 children. The summer camp wants to build a relationship between the children involved in the SAD project, who come from 10 different communes of Son Dong, and the 29 volunteers who come from all over Vietnam.

The SAD children are orphans of one or both parents or live with other relatives in conditions of poverty: with the Sponsorship Program they can go to school instead of having to work to support and feed themselves. For them and their families GTV supplying 60 kg of rice a year, teaching materials, the contributions for the school expenses and an annual medical examination.
The program is funded by the Trentino's families that, at least once a year, exchange correspondence - letters, cards, photos – with their sponsored children in Vietnam.

The main goal of the Summer Camp is to entertain and create a source of fun for the children and distribute material for the new school year. This experience turned out to be also a great opportunity for the young Vietnamese volunteers of CSDS - Centre for Studies on Sustainable Development – who take care of the animation, for graining new knowledge and actively participate in their community!

The volunteers, after the children has read the letters received, work with them one their response, a letter or a postcard, by encouraging them to give in to their imagination and create colorful and vibrant works! Then, CSDS volunteers separate the children into different groups so that all of them can participate actively in the various activities.
To the younger the volunteers asked to draw some pictures to describe their day, while at the older was given the task of create a play that'll be performed on stage later on. The kids really enjoyed this last activity because it left them space to express themselves freely.
Then, the volunteers decide to take a break from the activities and create a serene and joyful moment, they reunited all the children and proposed games and photography sessions.

The outcome of the summer camp was quite positive for both children and volunteers, who have managed to establish good relationships and got to know each other and create new friendships. The volunteers draw much satisfaction from the results achieved by the children, and they hope that the experience will take place again next year.
Here in Italy, GTV hopes to be able to give a new burst to the correspondence between the Italian and Vietnamese families, in order to become a real opportunity to know each other and to continue that bridge build between East and West.

On our facebook you can find the photo album of the summer camp 2015!