Paolo Menescardi, president of L’ORMA Camps: “We achieved qualitative and quantitative results!”

More than 10 years of experience in sport and educational projects, organization of sport events, management of volunteers in sport, training and education. Every year more than 200 laboratories in 50 schools, 3500 kids involved in summer camp, 500 teachers involved in training and workshop.

- How project/camp has started?

The first edition of L’ORMACAMP summer was in 2005. We liked to offer an innovative service to the families, providing a quality space and time in which children can improve themselves experimenting different kind of activities.

We achieved qualitative and quantitative results:

• We started in 2005 with 20 children in a small hotel, last summer we involved 850 children from all the North of Italy in a huge hotel ***;

• We started by offering a 1 week camp, last summer we provided 8 week camp;

• 90% of families expressed their satisfaction about the camp through our final survey;

• 80% of children reconfirm their participation for the next year.

- Where does your camp take place?

Our camp takes place in a beautiful village in the Alps. It’s Fondo in province of Trento, altitude 980 meters.

We have camp not only in the mountains, but also in the seaside (Cesenatico) and 7 city camps in the most important cities of Lombardy Region (Milano, Bergamo, Varese). At these camps we haven’t got English teacher yet, all in Italian.

- Please tell us about Mountain Camp program..

The program is based on movement: sport, theatre, music and dance. All the activities are implemented through non-formal education and learning-by-doing methods. Our aim is to empower the soft skills of the participants, stimulating socialization, learning the values, attitudes and actions through interactions with others.

Kids will develop socio-emotional skills through a well structured program which, as well, tends to boost their abilities to react to external by improving listening, attention and decision-making abilities. Sense of initiative, sense of empowerment and leadership are also stimulated by the combination of our multi- disciplinary approach and pedagogical methodology.

- What children would like your camp?

Our target audience is all the children and young people who want to spend an experience in the nature, experimenting with different kind of activities aimed at children’s growth and training.

They should prefer our camp because we have been organizing summer camp for 12 years and this is our job, so we have to be professional in all the part of the project.

The hotel is new, totally rebuilt, and it’s in a private park which is very safe for the participants.

All the activities have been tested for many years and meet the needs of young people of today.

All the staff (the director, the educators, the sport trainers) is professional, carefully selected and trained. We have a very long process of selection, during all the year:

• October/November: we put ads online and in the newspapers;

• December: we selected educators with 3 year experience in work with children and youngsters, graduated, with a passion for sport and outdoor activities. We make the first interview (and first selection);

• February: reconfirmation of the staff of the previous year. Group meeting with the “old” staff and the new candidates;

• March: compulsory training meeting for all. A training session lasts 1 week-end. Individual interview to understand the time availability for the next summer.

April/May: all the selected candidates have to follow our school laboratories for children, to see our way of teaching and prove it.

- How do you see your mission?

Our mission is to design, plan and implement particular training courses and activities aimed to stimulate and empower the personal growth of our interlocutors (children, youngsters, adults, and teachers). Our goal is to promote the culture of movement, as training and educational tool, as a fun and playful opportunity, as a tool for a healthy lifestyle and psychophysical well-being.

We know that it’s very hard to change the world, but we have been doing our best for 16 years, with our passion and professionalism, to make this world a better place, especially for the future generations.

Discover more news