On October 11th and 12th, Campus Chapters (CC) and Campus Clubs (CClub) gathered at National Chuo Youth Friendship Center (Gotenba, Shizuoka). 100 members came from Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka to the East, and Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, and even Oita to the West. CC and CClub are student organizations which organize and practice Habitat activities.
The theme for this workshop was "Interaction
and Understanding."; to encourage the interaction among CCs and CClubs who usually work separately, and to develop their understanding about Poverty Housing Issues of this world that Habitat for Humanity has been tackling.
CCs and CClubs of Habitat varies from big ones with more than 100 members to new and small ones with less than 10 members. Therefore, at first, members were feeling a little nervous
while excited about how the 1-night-2-days workshop would be.
When the program reached officially after icebreaking and introduction of each
organization, everyone showed great interest. The subject of Program 1 was "The role and future of CC & CClub." Despite this difficult topic, a lively discussion was made about the role and issues of their own CC&CClub, and the objects and goals of their activities.
Program 2 was to cook dinner at a fabulous location at the foot of Mt. Fuji. However, this wasn't easy. Each team was assigned what to
cook but without recipes saying how to cook!
In addition to typical Japanese camp food like
curry with rice, the menu included stir-fried vegitable and seafood on rice which needs something extra... Outdoor cooking was something expectable for the participants, but obviously no recipe was unexpectable. But they realized that this was a part of the program ---Team Build. They made their own dishes with
the members they had just met on the day.
Even though there was some funny work which was like "not curry rice but looking like curry
rice and tasted yummy", big tasty smiles were
on the faces of quickie cooks.
The program continued after the dinner. In spite of looking tired, everyone kept communicating with the members of other CC & CClub, and Habitat staffs.
About the fast but rich 24hours, participants commented; "It was inspiring to get connected with other organizations", "It was good to see each CC & CClub's efforts and features. We want to make a good use of it for our future activities", "We didn't really know about Habitat for Humanity even as we are a part of it. We learned a lot", and "We want such workshop to be held every year".
For the next year's workshop, we would like to make more productive program which can encourage CC & CClub activities more and more.
100 members from All Over Japan! First Joint Workshop for CC & CClub
2009/10/17