Over the last two weeks the BDF has been showing its softer side - to a group of young students at their annual summer camp. On Wednesday of this week we did a report on some invaluable life skills that were being taught to this group. Today the camp came to a close as the youngsters showcased some of what they had learned and 7 News was there.....
Lt. Ivan Locario - BDF
"Today is the closing ceremony for the first phase of our camp. We have the kids displaying all the things they did over the past 2 weeks, if you notice we have the football camp, you can see all the different menu and all the different foods the kids made for this closing ceremony and we will have the band displaying a little marching. We will also have the kids that did the aviation camp; they made models of the plane that they were using over the past 2 weeks."
Monica Bodden
"How many kids actually took part in the camp?"
Lt. Ivan Locario
"We had over 250 kids countrywide just for the first phase."
Monica Bodden
"And again just tell me about the camp. What you guys did over the 2 weeks."
Lt. Ivan Locario
"We had intro to aviation, we had intro to computer, football, cooking, we had 2 expedition camps both in the Cayo and Toledo districts."
Monica Bodden
"This is something that occurs annually?"
Lt. Ivan Locario
"It's an annual this yes and we are looking at how to develop our kids morally. We want to make sure that they understand that life is not necessarily what you see on TV life is real. It's time for us as a community to raise a child. We also have our Force Councilor, she has a database of all the kids on how to contact them so if they have issues over the next month until we do this next year, she could go in and tutor the kids and have some counseling sessions with them."
Minister Carlos Perdomo
"It's always as a former teacher and school administrator, it's always a pleasure to have summer camps, I encourage the Belize Defence Force Youth Corp, I believe that it gives opportunity for the younger kids to be around positive role models."
The children attending the camp ranged between 8 to 16.
