Tuscan Lions District announce a new International Lions camp called ‘Solidarity’, based in Florence. The motto of this new initiative is ‘Integration’.
The idea of the camp is to in integrate two international groups of young people: the ‘Solidarity’ group and the ‘Borgo d’Elisa’ camp disabled group. Six youngsters, for the first week, will be hosted, as normal, with Italian families. After this, they will form a single camp with the ten youngsters of the ‘Borgo d’Elisa’ group, and their assistants.
The idea to have the two groups spend time together came during a very enjoyable and lively joint tour of Florence by Lions Tuscan Camp and the Borgo d’Elisa group. All the youngsters passed a wonderful day visiting various sites in the city – laughing and speaking in sometimes comical English! All the young participants became instant friends.
The same experience was repeated a short while later at another Lions Italia camp at the Italian military academy in Modena. Here also, the youngsters spontaneously interacted – and had a thoroughly enjoyable visit.
We Lions have noticed this kind of interaction on other occasions – for example at our camp for disabled youngsters in Norway.
Following up on these successful experiences, we decided to unite the two groups in a natural way regardless of differences in ability. In our experience, both groups can learn a vast amount from this unique joint experience.
Practical Information
The Lions Solidarity Camp will consist of six international youngsters who will be hosted by Italian families for a week – before entering the Camp (7 July to 17 July 2010).
The youngsters must be between 19 and 30 years of age. We will be visiting the celebrated artistic sites of Tuscany, and there will be many opportunities for lively social, sporting and other activities together – as well as opportunities to discover cultural treasures. This unique camp gives a total context for interaction between the youngsters – not only cultural – but one that gives a full sense of youthful vitality and diverse experiences.
YCEC Lion Fiorenzo Smalzi |
