Summer Leadership Camp

8 days, 50 girls, 3 languages, 9 business plans, and at least 30 french braids later, Winrock International and OSCE's (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) summer camp for leadership came to a close. They brought together 50 girls from Moldova, including 25 girls from the breakaway state of Transnistria, a US-unrecognized territory in Moldova.

The girls were mostly high school students and some first-year university students. Part of the camp's goals were to teach them business and leadership skills to prevent the migration of youth abroad for work and human trafficking. At the beginning of the camp the girls were separated to room with girls from different areas of Moldova, and often with a mixture of native Romanian and native Russian speakers. Three girls from my village were accepted to join the camp, and I was so excited to see them meet other girls in their country they would not otherwise get the chance to meet. Most people in the villages stick to the village life, unless they go to university in Chisinau, but even then social groups from home often stick together.

The campers were also separated into Russian and Romanian language speaking groups for the session topics. From there they were separated into smaller groups to develop business plans. From the very beginning they started with an idea and then learned to budget, create competitive business analyses, develop target markets and marketing plans, and on the last day presented full business plans. Ideas ranged from restaurants to hair salons to eco-friendly services.

As a camp counselor with three other Peace Corps volunteers, we were assigned several different sessions to lead. I was partnered with other Russian-speaking counselors to lead several sessions: career planning, leadership, gender equality, breast cancer, business presentations, and ethics. Other topics included family planning, human trafficking, domestic violence, and the full range of business planning topics. We all headed up daily English Club sessions to mix the Romanian and Russian speakers together. This was a favorite for many of the campers.

What I found to be so wonderful about this camp was the friendships these girls developed with one another in a short amount of time. Alla, one of the girls from my village, walked out of one session from a snide remark one of the girls said to her after she answered a question in front of everyone. At the end of the camp, they shared tears as they hugged goodbye.

The other thing that was so great, was seeing the hope and optimism they all have for their plans. They are not naive about the problems they face in their country with high unemployment, little development in the villages, corruption, and strong gender differences and roles. However, they seemed to understand all of this and were open to gaining more knowledge and gaining the skills necessary to combat all of the obstacles they will face.