On the first day of the holiday camp, a very special team from SOS Children's Villages The Gambia came to offer their support to Kumba Ndure, the Family Strengthening Programme Coordinator who initiated the whole event. Among them, eight SOS co-workers, including both village directors from Bakoteh and Basse gave a hand, but the team also included Anna (eight-year-old girl) and Baboucar (ten-year-old boy), two children from SOS Children's Village Bakoteh who came to enjoy the day with all the other children.  

One of the successfully achieved objectives of such an initiative was to bring together all the orphans and vulnerable children on the programme so that they can get to know one another and know that they are not alone in their situation. But having fun was top on the agenda!  

Several sportive, creative and fun activities were organised according to the different age groups, in different places of the multi-purpose centre.   

One of the kindergarten classroom, empty for the holidays, hosted a paper crown making workshop. As soon as all the children had picked the pre-cut paper of the colour of their choice, the room became all silent and all the little faces were concentrated in colouring, drawing and gluing things on their crowns. Once the workshop supervisor helped each child with a couple of staples to fix the whole crown together, the whole centre became gradually full of kings and queens.  

In another classroom children could draw and paint. Outside, they could participate to sack races, football matches, musical chairs and plenty other activities. What made things even more fun, was that by participating or winning a race, children were given tickets that they could exchange against a gift in the 'gift shop area'. Depending on the number of tickets they gave, they could come out of the shop with various school materials, teddy bears, card games, story books, balls, sweets...  

The gathering was also a good opportunity to sensitize the older children on various issues and help them form a children committee, to get them to participate in decisions affecting them. 

In the evenings, all were dancing and singing. Care-givers and mothers greatly contributed to the whole event by cooking the three meals per day and supervising the children at night, as all slept in the multi-purpose centre.   

The event was a great success and a memorable experience for all the participants. Children were already asking when the next holiday camp would take place. Only Anna and Baboucar where not so happy in the end, as they had to go back to SOS Children's Village Bakoteh after having spend a whole day playing and having fun. They were promised that the next time, things would be arranged for them to also spend the night with all the other children. 

The family strengthening programme of SOS Children's Villages The Gambia which supports so far 129 families to reach self-reliance - a total of 340 orphans and vulnerable children - from various areas of the Western Division has already planned to organise similar holiday camps for all the children on the programme in the near future. And next time, now the team knows how to 'handle' such an event, more children from SOS Children's Villages will be invited to join!