Concept Paper of “Winter Camp 2010”

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Education is stated everywhere as the best media for the people by which they learn about the
world, increase their ability and creativity to achieve success in the life. Today’s necessity is that
one should be well educated, well known and well informed. There are three steps of learning:

 The person, who doesn't know/ aware about something, should be given knowledge.
 The person, who has knowledge but can’t perform, should be taught skill.
 And the person who has knowledge, and skill even though he doesn’t implement in his life,
should need to change his attitude.

These three-aspects: knowledge, skill and attitude influence the behavior and behavior influences
the result. To achieve the best result, our educational system should contain these three aspects.
Our current educational system gives more emphasis in knowledge and skill. This has helped
people a lot with regards to the increment in knowledge and in some sense develops ability. But
still, due to the lack of attitude development in the system, we are unable to get the expected result.
So the children who are in respective age should be emphasized in extra activities besides school
curriculums. Everything they learn and do during this age makes long life effects and last forever.
Taking all this in an account, ECCA organizes overnight camps for students as extra-curricular
outdoor activities. These camps can play vital role for self-realization as well as in putting
environment and social concept in practice.

2.0 THE CAMP

Winter camp is designed by the ECCA as a motivator in order to bring change in behavior which is
socially and environmentally acceptable and appreciable for providing knowledge, skills and
attitudes. It is a broad environmental, educational and entertainment program, which would be
interesting and appropriate to all their ages and show their balanced ability in every context of their
life.
This four days overnight camp will provide excitement and adventurous moments to the
participants and offer unique and historic opportunity to make winter vacation memorable with
extra and recreational activities.

3.0 OBJECTIVES OF THE CAMP

The camp carries following integrate objectives so as to bring the most effective results.

• To boost up understanding ability on various environmental issues by sharing experiences

and opinions (since they are the future stakeholder of the world).
• To utilize winter vacation in an effective manners.
• To develop their knowledge, life skills and positive attitudes.
• To provide fun, adventurous and excitement moment.
• To develop inner discipline through self realization.

4.0 TARGET GROUP

Students from class 6-9 (Age group of 9-15)

5. 0 DATE AND DURATION

The First camp is scheduled on Dec 26th -29th and Second camp is on Dec. 31st –Jan 3rd 2011(3
nights and 4 days)
6.0 CAMP VENUE
The camp will be conducted in the ECCA’s Environmental Resource Center- a place designed to
provide environment friendly ambience for hosting training, retreats and overnight programs. The
center is situated at the south-western corner of the Kathmandu Valley, in the Sipadol VDC,
Bhaktapur from where, we can get a panoramic view of the entire northern range of Himalayas of
the valley as well as the roof-top view of Kathmandu and Bhaktapur cities.
The center is equipped with all necessary facilities i.e. training hall, separate dormitory for girls and
boys, toilets/ bathrooms, dining hall, playground and spots for recreation activities which is an ideal
place for conducting quiet, productive and creative programs away from the hectic and haphazard
schedule of the urban lifestyle.

7.0 CAMP ACTIVITIES

During the camp, more than 40 percent of the time is spent on personal development creative work,
environment related sessions, projects (hands-on activities) and about 40 percent on recreational
games, nature hike, audio visuals, discussion on general issues, development of personal visioning
and designing follow up activities. Rest of the time is spent on informal gathering, recreational
activities, competitions and feedback.

Major activities that would be conducted in the camps will be,

SESSIONS
All our classes and sessions will be given by ECCA experts and counselors. The in-depth study and
instructions about subjects will be provided to the participants. The topics are taught using different
prototypes and innovative methods developed by various educational institutions all over the world
and adopted for local context. It includes different sessions on;
• Life skills
• Exotic view of Nepal
• Visioning
• Leadership
• Presentation

EXPLORE THE NATURE

Nature hike is conducted to observe and study the flora & faunas and to identify birds, animals and
their habitat, and to observe the effects of deforestation, over grazing. Suitable environmental
games are played at regular intervals. Binoculars are used to identify the birds and animals and their
habitat. Scavenger hunt sets trapped the insects to get the closer look. The hike is also conducted so
that in long run the participant can develop expertise as Nature Guide for the visitors. To introduce
with the rural scenario of Nepal, a short village tour will be conducted in which participants will
observe village environment. It includes
• Nature hike
• Village tour
• Heritage walk
• Bird watching
• Tree planting

COMPETITIONS
Different competitions are conducted to encourage their hidden talents. They will get an
opportunity to participate in different activities and to make them more active. During these camp
different competitions are included like;
• Treasure hunt
 • Role play
• Art competition
• Master and Miss Camp
• Match your steps
• Tug of war

CREATIVE and SKILL WORK

Everyone has some kind of creativity and skills so participants will be given equal opportunities to
explore hidden creativity and skill during the camp.
• Paper recycling and creative use of waste
• Mask making and napkin folding
• Nature photography

ADVENTURE CHALLENGE:
Different challenges are included in this camp program to make participants more energetic and
courageous such as
• Scouting
• Tug of war
• Omega
• Life skills and Environmental games

FUN and RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Recreational games are also played at regular intervals as games convey the important messages
about the flora and fauna and the environment. It’s very entertaining to play and easy to learn. All
of these games have specific messages to relay. Camp firing will be done in the last night of the
camp. Setting of camps and bring closeness among the participants and with nature as well, this
also provides extra fun and entertainment to the participants.
• Camp fire
• Star watching
• Meditation/Yoga
• Surprise costume eve
• Documentary show
• Talent show
• New year celebrations

8.0 ANTICIPATED BENEFITS

The contain of the whole camp will equip all participants with new knowledge, skills and attitudes
which are essential for facing the present competitive world and move into the new level of inner-
discipline to bring them change. It is expected that all the participants will be motivated to bring
behavior change, to make them active and grab more. This will establish a link between youth with
children, NGOs with Schools and social environment with natural environment.
It will be a new beginning for all the participants to realize the need of change for the betterment of
life and achieve success in sound environmental and social management, as all problems can't
be solved over night.

9.0 CAMP COST

Registration charge for the camp is Rs. 5000 per participant, which includes all costs of food,
accommodation, transportation, resource materials etc. during the camp.
10.0 FOR FURTHUR INFORMATION
ECCA, Neapl
Wise-use House
Jwagal, Kupondol, Lalitpur.
GPO Box: 9210, Kathmandu, Nepal
Phone: 977-1-5553870, 5550452, 5011013
Fax: +977-1-5011006
Email: ecca@mos.com.np
Web: ecca@org.com.np

11.0 BRIEF DISCRIPTION OF THE ORGANIZATION

Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness (ECCA), established in 1987 as a non-
governmental, non-profit making, and non- political organization is a member of The World
Conservation Union (IUCN). It is registered with His Majesty's Government, Nepal and affiliated
with Social Welfare Council, Nepal. Its Primary Objective is to raise awareness on conservation
and sound resource management in children - and through them, the community.

The ECCA methodology involves three interfaces:

a) The expert - youth interface (Counselor Training Camp, CTC)
b) The youth - children interface (ECCA Camp)
c) The children - community interface (Follow-up program)

The entire program is based on the principle of wise resource management and conservation, and
bringing new insights into environmental protection. Besides this, conservation practices will be
success only after improving the socio-economic condition, which means improving their living
standard by means of income generating activities, changing their attitude and understanding by
means of education. The three phases of ECCA programs are conducted step by step. To cover the
overall aspect of environment, the curriculum is designed to address local interests and needs with
topics drawn from eight different fields (Environmental Management, Skill Development,
Technology, Health and Sanitation, Nature Hike and Local Environment Study, Natural Science,
Arts & Crafts, and Culture and Heritage). ECCA's educational approach is non- conventional,
encouraging learning through discovery and experimentation rather through lectures and text.
Participants work in both large and small groups and emphasis is given to individual participation.
Extensive use of demonstrations, experiments and audiovisual aids help make environment
principals and practices a reality. Through nature hike and village survey, the participants' new
found knowledge is firmly linked to their own perspective of the world.

ECCA is mobile to suit Nepal's topography; flexible to meet the needs of a culturally diverse
population; interdisciplinary to provide the total environmental picture; a link as it links
environmental experts, motivated youths, and school children; and a motivator as it sparks campers'
and counselors interest in their own environmental and community problems and emphasizes that
they are the protectors of their surroundings.

ECCA became the first Nepali NGO to be presented with a CITATION by His Majesty's
Government in 1991. ECCA was awarded second CITATION by Ministry of Population and
Environment in 2001 for its contribution in environmental awareness. And the Rolex Award
committee recognized ECCA's unique methodology in its 1993 `Spirit of Enterprise Book'.

ECCA work areas have included national parks, watersheds and conservation areas with success as
indicated by independent evaluations done during and after the program. ECCA works in
collaboration with a whole spectrum of grassroots, national and international NGOs (such as MS
Nepal, GEF, IUCN, REDD BARNA, WWF, UNDP, MacArthur Foundation, WMT), and
government projects in achieving its goals.

ECCA has established an Environmental Resource Center in Bhaktapur and Field Study Center in
Janakpur. Besides, ECCA has started a paper-recycling unit (named Pap-Again) with the objective
of producing recycled paper from the waste paper collected from office, schools, press, etc