Camp Kindle means a lot to the children who get to go. Kassidy, my friend and fellow camper, says that the camp lets children with HIV express themselves. “Some of them don’t get to do that often at school, or at home, or at church, because of influences and stigma,” she said. Kassidy went to camp with me and has gotten to know people who have been victims of the stereotypes that come along with the virus.
[pullquote_right]Camp Kindle is about spreading education, because a lot of people are uneducated about the disease of HIV and AIDS.”[/pullquote_right]“Camp Kindle is about spreading education, because a lot of people are uneducated about the disease of HIV and AIDS,” says Rockpile, a counselor at the camp. To me, the camp is about many things, but this is one of the main things it’s about.
“Usually when kids go there for the first time, they aren’t too happy to be there,” said Rockpile, whose real name is Russell Boring. Rockpile was my counselor at the camp. I have to admit that I wasn’t very excited to go there my first year. I was going to a place with a bunch of people I had never met before and before I went to camp, I had never really spent a whole entire day without my parents, which scared me a little bit. On my first day, about three summers ago, I was surprised because the campsite wasn’t really the way I’d pictured it in my mind. At the front of the campsite there was a huge cafeteria where we ate, held our camp activities, and had our big end-of-the-week showcase where we showed everybody what we had been doing and the projects we were working on.
When my friend and I were talking about camp, I thought about all the good times I had there. I wish I could go this year too, but there’s a camp rule that once you graduate from your cabin, you have to spend a year away from camp so you can mature and come back the following year as a CIT (counselor in training). I imagined everything I would do up there if I went this year and all the new people I would get to know.
Camp Kindle is important to me because the children who go there always leave with more than they came with. I don’t mean material items, although you do leave with some pretty cool things. Rockpile said that the camp helps HIV positive children understand the virus. “A lot of [the campers] say I know I have it, but I don’t understand what it actually means to me,” he said. He was right. Before camp, I knew I had it, but I didn’t know what it meant. At camp I learned more about what I have and how to manage it.
In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.
Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.
The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.
