Camp Glow Recycling Activities

VEPA volunteers helped out on Thursday to teach the Camp Glow girls how to recycle waste products.

The VEPA and Camp Glow team! 

Camp Glow is an annual event organised by the Peace Corps.  About 30 Tongan female students are chosen from the local high schools to participate in a week of fun learning.  They are taught about nutrition, sex education, careers choices as well as participating in arts and craft activities and games. 

VEPA spent two hours with the girls making a world map out of bottle caps and wallets out of milk and juice tetra paks.  The girls had so much fun and were excited with their end products.  

It was lovely spending time with such a happy enthusiastic group of young ladies.  They were all very interested in the different countries, how many people they had in them, what they were like etc. 

World Map made out of bottle caps. 

Some of the girls painted their wallets

Susana and Mele helping the girls make the world map

Aimee and I carefully banged in at least 30 poppers for the wallets which left me with two rather sore fingers!  All the wallets turned out fantastic with some of the girls painting theirs bright colours. 

Thank you so much Kate, Aimee, Vicky, Susana and Mele for helping out!

'Ofa atu

Elana

Aimee Foster (Friend of VEPA) making wallets out of tetra pak's

Creative kids keep the oceans clean!

It is only my second day in Vava'u and I have already seen the great work that VEPA is doing. I thought it would be a great experience to help out at the Saturday library morning with the local children. 

Elana, Jean (volunteer),  Judy (a local volunteer) and myself took out paintbrushes and paint and ended up with an innovative way to try and clean up the outer islands of Vava'u. 

The kids put their artistic talent to the test, and sent out an environmental message by painting empty flour sacks that will soon be distributed to tourists entering by boat so they can collect the rubbish that washes up on the shore in Vava'u. 

The kids were very excited, and once a paintbrush was in hand there were colours flying from all directions. The sacks were landscaped with pristine beaches that were clean from pollution, full of fish in all shapes and sizes and la'a skies (meaning sunny skies in Tongan).  On many sacks were kind and appreciative messages to thank the people for cleaning up the rubbish. 

While the painted flour sacks were drying in the sun, the kids turned to me as a face painter, and I painted their faces with butterflies and flowers.

Overall the day was a great success, and I had a great time meeting all of the kids, although it was difficult to memorise so many Tongan names at once.


By Tess Graves Browne


* Tess is visiting Vava'u for a week during her university break.  She was very keen to get involved and spend some time volunteering with the kids during her stay.  Thanks for helping out Tess! 

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