Reaching Out
During April, World Autism Awareness Month, when I first launched Autism Belize, one of the first people to reach out to me was Abby Wade. She complimented my efforts and suggested we try to work together because she also helps to run an inclusive camp, Camp Joy. Honestly, this was the start of the COVID scare and I was overwhelmed trying to postpone planned activities. I needed to figure out how to keep the focus on Autism Awareness and Acceptance during this month while everyone was locked in. Things got complicated and busy fast and I didn’t get a chance to follow-up.
Thank goodness for perseverance, though. A couple months later, I’m still trying to plan online trainings and events, and I get another call. This time from Rachel Lopez who works at Camp Joy. This time, thankfully, we do get more of a chance to talk and I get to learn a whole lot more about Camp Joy.
Camp Joy
Camp Joy Belize is a ministry of Living Waters Fellowship Church. It was founded in 2014 by Pastors Frankie and Abby Wade and is located in Belmopan. Camp Joy focuses on youths 13 and older with intellectual disabilities and special needs. It aims to provide a supportive, fun, inclusive environment with Christian values at the core. Even more amazing is that the camp has a one-to-one camper to counselor ratio!
Over the years, they’ve grown to more than just a summer camp. They have done lots of training, job coaching and placement for persons with intellectual disabilities and special needs and have helped out in the community as well.
I had no idea such a camp existed here in Belize and I was just so impressed at everything they have done. Unfortunately though, this is 2020 and with COVID-19, of course, this meant, they were unable to host their camp this year.
Partnership & Volunteerism
Adjusting accordingly, some of the volunteers who usually come to Belize to assist Camp Joy reached out to Autism Belize. They still wanted to help even if they couldn’t get on a plane. So they offered to host trainings for our Special Needs Parents and interested teachers. We had our first Camp Joy Volunteer Professional training in October and it was interactive and provided us all with much useful, practical information. Hopefully, we’ll be able to host more of these very soon.
Daily Joy
In an effort to keep working with the Camp Joy teens, they have also taken their Daily Joy program online via Zoom. Daily Joy is now every Tuesday at 3PM. Teenagers can log in for a social hour. They chat, play games, sing songs, do crafts and basically hang out. It offers a great opportunity for our special needs teens who might be feeling especially isolated right now to hang out with friends and get a little bit of socializing in. Honestly, it’s a great way to also give our kiddos more exposure to Zoom too – something many schools are using now.
If you have or know of a special needs teen who might like to participate in Daily Zoom or if you have further questions about this weekly social meet, please message me directly. This is new and evolving but I can see where it can really be a great opportunity especially for some of our more high functioning teens.