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High on adventure….Sukalp Sharma, Vishakha Talreja
While hobby classes in painting; dance and music during summer breaks for children are passe now, adventure camps imparting skills in rock climbing, rafting and trekking are the flavour of the season Naman Chaudhary, all of 13 years, is a black-belt karate kid in love with the outdoors. He is possessed by a desire for adventure and nature, and his parents admire young Naman about it, as they want their son to be rough and tough physically as well as mentally. There is a practical problem though; the Chaudharys put up in Mumbai, a concrete jungle and not a real jungle as Naman would probably like it to be. All that he would do on a regular basis in the city was half an hour or so of cricket, in addition to whiling away the rest of his free time with friends on his computer and video games. So, last year during his summer vacation, Naman’s mother, Meena, packed him off to a summer camp hundreds of miles away, in almost-wilderness, to satisfy his desire for adventure and her own desire to make him a strong and responsible individual.
And it’s not only the Chaudharys who are doing it. A growing tribe of parents wants their kids not to spend the entire vacation watching Pogo or Cartoon Network, or toying with GI Joes or for that matter Barbie dolls. Even the run-of-the-mill hobby classes in painting, dance and music are passé now. Parents want their children to sweat it out, be close to nature and hone up their mental and physical strength. And with the mushrooming of a flurry of outfits imparting life skills through adventure camps, especially during the summer holiday months, parents are finding it a lot easier to send their children for some serious fun.
“When Naman returned from the camp, he was quite tanned, his lips were dry and chapped because of the heat and physical activity. But he was genuinely happy, and so were we. Activities like these go a long way in character building. He has to grow up and face the world, travel in local trains and buses, and for all that, a protected and predominantly indoor environment won’t help. Kids hardly have any space to have sufficient outdoor physical activities in a city like Mumbai,” says Meena. It was the reference of Naman’s friend’s parents that convinced her about the credentials of the camp.
Though Nintendos and Playstations are still quite fancied by the kids, outdoor activities are definitely in vogue. But neither parents nor school-going children are just content with their club’s swimming pool or badminton coaching. Yes, it’s the adventure camps complete with military training camp activities like obstacle courses, rock climbing, rafting and trekking that are the flavour of the season. And that’s not all. Activities like mind games, team building exercises, kitchen gardening and even photography classes are thrown in by some outfits to create a mesh wherein hobbies can be combined with the strenuous physical labour at the camps in order to impart life skills.
Looking at this growing opportunity, around four years back, ex-army officers and brothers Sushil Bhasin and Naval Kohli started their company Empower Activity Camps to impart life skills to corporates and kids, by organising adventure camps tucked somewhere in the Western Ghats on the Bombay-Goa highway. Since then, they have witnessed an increasing number of queries from parents who want to send their kids to attend their camps that “mix adventure sports with group activities to train them at a young age and inculcate skills pertaining to decision making and leadership”.
Recently they organised a five-day camp for special children belonging to Delhi-based Tamanna Special School. “Clearly, there is a growing interest in outdoor adventure camps. Though there are sports and team building exercises, the experience for children becomes wholesome as we make them cook, make their beds, do kitchen gardening and other activities,” says Naval Kohli, MD of Empower Activity Camps.
That’s not all. In order to let parents keep a watch and monitor the camp activities, Kohli takes the aid of social media. “We upload pictures on Facebook everyday, so that parents can see what their kids are actually up to,” he adds.
Some outfits have been organising such camps for years. Delhi-based Wildrift Adventure Camp is one such example. It has been organising such camps since 1993. “We organise adventure-cum-football camps in which the focus is on adventure sports in the first half of the eight-day camp, and the rest of it is about soccer. But clearly, we are increasingly seeing more queries for adventure sports than football,” says Amit Marks, director, Wildrift Adventure Camps, which organises residential camps in Saattal and Mukteshwar. For an eight-day camp, the company charges R9,750 per child, which includes travel by bus (from Delhi), accommodation, food and all camp activities. Another Delhi-based camp organiser says that while last year he organised camps for only two groups during summer vacations, this year he is organising four-group camps.
Most summer camps for kids specify ages between 8 to 16 years, while typically at the camps, most kids are actually in the age bracket of 12 to 16. However, the trend is fast changing. It’s about catching them young. And the summer camps are doing just that.
Shivang Mehta, founder of Nature Wanderers, says that last summer it was a 14-year-old teenager who was the youngest member of their group to Bandavgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, but this year an eight-year-old student is the youngest member. “The average age of children who are going camping during their vacations or otherwise is definitely lower now. The whole idea is to groom them from an early age. Parents realise that training them from the start is the key really,” Mehta explains. Nature Wanderers is organising wildlife photography camp with Canon this year. The two-night Juniors Program costs R8,500 and includes resort accommodation, food, train tickets and workshop fee.
Though most parents and even camp organisers prefer sending kids to domestic camp destinations, foreign locales are not completely off the radar. Those who can afford it are not shying away from sending their children abroad, to the wilderness of some other land. Mehta of Nature Wanderes tells us how their next camp to Kenya, which turns into wildlife spectacle in the month of August, has quite a few kids on board, too. Clubbing wildlife photography with these camps works wonders for Mehta, as with the advent of digital cameras, even wildlife photography is literally a child’s play these days!
If all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, all play and no work would make him as dull. That’s why parents particularly like the discipline maintained at most such camps, which for most parents is quite a challenge at home. Savita Mukherjee, a mother of two sons, says, “Last year, my 14-year-old son along with his couple of friends insisted on attending this camp. I was worried that these kids might just spend time loitering around their tents and forests. But was pleasantly surprised to hear that they would get up at the crack of dawn everyday, cook their own food and were really busy with the activities that were lined up for them.”
American philosopher and artist Raymond Duncan once quipped, “A lot of parents pack up their troubles and send them off to summer camps.” However, on a more serious note, bringing out the back-packer adventurer in their children seems to be the perfect summer vacation mantra these days for parents who watch their children negotiate the jungle of a different kind in the cities while growing up. Giving them a taste of the real thing won’t be too bad, but only too good.
Camp for More
* Do a background check of the organisation.
* When selecting the camp, rely on word-of-mouth. Try talking to kids who have already attended that camp last year. A credible camp organiser will help you with the details. Don’t let the internet be your only source of information.
* Check the USP of the camp (wildlife photography, soccer, group activities, etc.) and if it matches with your kid’s interests?
* Ensure that the outdoor camp has a doctor.
* Ensure that the equipments used for adventure sports are certified.
* Get full details on the cost of the tour, and check if there are any hidden costs. Most of them cover accommodation, food, travel and activities.
* Outdoor camps especially in hills run the risk of being out of network area. So take alternate contact details.
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