H2O and the SSC, a special partnership
Throughout July 2009, over 40 young people from the Oban area attended SSC camps at Struan in Perthshire. Taking place over three different week-long camps, the Struan experience follows the following format:
- Week 1-"Advanced Guard", a concise group of 40 "seniors", S4-S6 age group who spend their time setting up the campsite for the main camps during the following weeks. Key tasks include erecting the 2 main marquee tents, pitching 24 troop tents, installing hot showers under supervision. Nine of the participants were from Oban.
- Week 2 - "Mixed Camp 1" 21 participants from Oban
- Week 3 - "Mixed Camp 2" 35 participants from Oban
- Total participation was 65 places over the 3 weeks from 42 participants. The 9 seniors who attended Advance Guard stayed for the 3 weeks and others attended both Mixed 1 and Mixed 2.
Over the three weeks the camps cater for more than 300 young people from all over Scotland. During Mixed 1 and Mixed 2, the daily programmes include discussion groups, sports, outdoor activities, wide games and "sing-song". These snapshot societies bring together young people from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, from Aberdeen to Glasgow to Argyll to Fife to the Borders to Edinburgh and many betwixt and between.
In addition to the ongoing benefits for young people to develop their skills socially and physically, H2O's partnership with SSC has provided particular opportunities for the organisations to work closely together to develop small group work, and to explore issues of the Christian faith, the basis upon which the SSC was founded in 1912.
"SSC are delighted with our partnership with H2O in Oban. Young people who attend our camps at Struan now have an excellent year round resource in the school, on the street and in The Well. Though, what they achieve is much more than that. Hope 2 Oban reaches out to all the young people in and around Oban and the work they do with a variety of partner organisations and on their own is a credit to the town and surrounding area. The interfaith work and the intergenerational aspects of their approach provides, not just high quality Christian youth work, but a real sense of community development and involvement. I’m looking forward to seeing and being involved in how H2O develops over the next 6 years."
Steven Hughes, SSC Youth Development Worker.
Summer camp relational youth work is developed throughout the year through daily contact at Oban High School, occasional events such as visits to the Ice Factor at Kinlochleven and film nights as well as seasonal weekends away such as visits to Stanley Nairne Centre and Tobermory. Each of these opportunities aims to build and grow the informal yet crucial supportive relationships with individual and small groups of young people from Oban and the surrounding area.