CISV Minicamp Angelsea

After almost two weeks in Melbourne I had my first weekend off work, and what else would I do than join a CISV Minicamp.

For those of you, who don’t know CISV, here are some links:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CISV_International

Home

https://m.facebook.com/cisvinternational/

I found out about the camp via Facebook and luckily the organizers made it work for me to come to the camp, though I just asked two days before the camp started.

Angelsea was a two hour train/bus ride from Melbourne but the time ran very fast because I was travelling with another participant. We arrived Friday night, so we only met the adults because the kids were already asleep. We played some name games to get to know each other and went to sleep as well.

On Saturday we had a lot of fun meeting the children, playing games and doing energizers with them. We also talked about a lot of serious things and it was very interesting for me to get to know children’s views of political and historical topics. It was also another great opportunity to learn more about Australia’s history.

And finally on Sunday, after playing more fun games, it was time to say goodbye. Even though I’ve done a lot of stuff with CISV already, it always surprises me how close you become with these lovely people in less than three days, and how hard it is to say goodbye, especially to the kids who opened up to complete strangers.

What I like most about CISV is that nobody judges you, and you can say anything that’s on your mind because nobody will laugh about it. I recommend it to anyone who has an open mind, and is interested in different cultures and people. Of course you also have a lot of fun and you can learn so much from the children.

Going to the camp was the right decision – I wouldn’t want to miss that experience.