On the 27th of September The Base@Belmont carried out the first ever five day Youth Leadership Camp, in the Margaret River region. The purpose of the camp was to develop their leadership skills through a unique bush experience. The young people were aged between 17-25 and were challenged to develop their independent living skills by self-managing for the camp’s entirety. From carrying their own equipment, to setting up their tents, cooking their own food and even taking charge of directions for a day at a time, they did it all!
Youth Services Manager, David Reid said “The young people took a day each where they were the leader, they were in charge of all aspects of the camp from what time we got up, to how we prepared breakfast, which trail we went onto, and their map reading.
“YMCA WA’s role was to support the young people but also allow them to make mistakes. So if they went off track that was fine, but we encouraged them to work together as a group and listen to each other to solve the problem or get back on track, which was really nice to see,” David said.
The group hiked up to 15kms a day and covered 30kms on bikes, with in between activities that gave young people the opportunity to conquer personal challenges. Together they mountain biked, went caving and even abseiled; overcoming barriers left, right and centre.
“One of the young people was adamant that she wasn’t going to do the abseiling however through the support of her peers, she did the highest abseil and she did it the quickest – and she loved it! So she went from being really scared to smashing it, which was really positive to see,” David recalled.
At the end of each day there was a team debrief where the young people identified their biggest challenge that day, what they were most proud of, what someone else in the group had done really well and how someone else in the group had supported them.
David said: “There was amazing feedback from the young people about what they’d learnt about themselves, what they’d learnt about the staff as well and they all wanted to do it again.
“Part of the program now is we’ll be taking these young people who have developed these leadership skills through the camp to becoming youth mentors for the younger children across other programs.”
The Base@Belmont will definitely look to do another five day camp in the future, as this camp proved to have amazing outcomes for the young people involved.