Oh boy, finally, I’m home again sleeping on my own bed after spending 3 days 2 nights at my workplace. Why was I there?, Ha, that’s because, from Wednesday (29th October 2008) till Friday (31st October 2008), I was working as a facilitator for a camp organised by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) called CAMP EVO II, this is the 2nd year that they had organised it and I’m honoured to be part of it, as I went through an amazing learning journey in this 3days 2 nights facilitating and taking care of 14 young secondary school students that are totally different from one another and I really meant that they are really different..
You see, this is an unique camp where we had 98 students coming from all over Singapore, coming from different school and the unique part was that half of them were student leaders, who were often deems as the elite of the school and the other half were the exact opposite, who are deems as the troublemakers or the youth-at-risk. There were students coming both from school that are in the top 10 and the bottom 20, can you imagining that kind of combination? If not, just imagining putting a groups of students that can score 10 As for ”O” level student with a group of students that are on the verge on getting expelled!! This camp actually put both extremes end together and then still ask them not to only just work together as a group but also asking them to befriend each other!!” Sounds like disaster to you? but to me it sounds definitely interesting and challenging infact, the word should be AMAZING!!!
You can never imaging the magic of this training camp, at first, what you could see on first day, was that the ”GOOD” students was shock that they were exposed to the group of “BAD” student and i mean really “BAD…!” as we are talking about Students that had been in and out of Boy’s home aka “the youth prison”.
And you can clearly see that the face on the “GOOD” students goes something like” OH MY GOD, WHY ARE WE GOING TO A CAMP THAT ARE FULL OF THESE ”CANNOT MAKE IT STUDENTS”!!! THIS IS CRASY!! NO WAY I”M GOING TO MIX WITH THEM!!” and on the face on the “BAD” students, it says something like “F#$K MAN, WHAT IS THIS, BORING MAN, WHY ALL THESE NERDS ARE HERE?? ASK THEM GO BACK AND STUDY LAH!! THEY BETTER DON’T GET INTO MY WAY AH!!” Yup, that was what the first day of camp sounds like.
However, on the last day of the camp, the faces on both sets of students were saying something like these “ NO… PLEASE LET THE CAMP CONTINUE, I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME YET, I STILL WANT TO HAVE FUN WITH ALL THESE GREAT PEOPLE!!! IT IS CLEAR THAT WE ARE DIFFERENT, BUT I LOVE THEM!! I DON’T WANT THE CAMP TO END!!!” Impossible??? Was that what you were thinking? Well, sad to disappoint you, the camp did really end in this way…
Ha don’t ask me to write out what went on in the camp that made these drastic changes, all I can say is that it was amazing, and if i really want to write, it is going to take me hours and hours to pen all my thoughts and learning from this camp in here….
Well, nevertheless, If there is just one learning or message that I want to send out with this post, I will definitely share the next two words with you, and they are “Acceptance” and “Choice”
In just 3 days, these Youths from different family backgrounds be it happy, unhappy, good, bad, rich or poor, these Youths from different study environments be it in Special,Express,Normal Academic or Normal Technical, these Youths from different living condition, be it able to have anything in the world or as fighting to just to have the stomach fill, these Youths from different life challenges, be it loneliness, parent abuse, gangsterism had all came to understand and learn to accept that each individual are different and they learn to make a choice to embrace the difference and then make a choice to respect and love a fellow human being regardless who and what they are.
It was a moment where true love, care and concern were showing up, and it had brought students from different extremes to put all prejudice and judgment aside and to love each other like true brothers and sisters.
And mind you, not long before, they were just students living in their own “World” where the elites were kept in a safe environment while the opposite were in a challenge environment and in no way, will they mix with one another, but in 3 just days, they can put all aside and put their arms around each other shoulders and says, “IT WAS GREAT KNOWING YOU AND MAY THIS FRIENDSHIP CONTINUES”
So, my friends, are there people around you right now, that you thought that you can never accept them just because they are different from you? Are there someone that you will never even want to talk to just because you don’t like them? Or are there somebody that you will never thought you will go and make friends with just because of who they are and what they are?
If the answer is YES, then my dear friends, is time start to learn to accept and love who and what they are…. So that the world of yours and mine will no longer be filled with prejudice, racism, discrimination, narrow-mindedness and to be filled with genuine love, care and respect for yet another human being…… 
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