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The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii has opened registration for its upcoming Tanoshii Hawaii Keiki Summer Camp, the place kids can expertise hands-on studying of Japanese American historical past, tradition and traditions.
This would be the JCCH’s first summer time camp since 2011, and it’ll embrace 5 days of actions geared for kids getting into grades three to eight.
“We are introducing the kids to parts of their culture that they haven’t gotten to learn yet,” stated Devynn Kochi, senior program coordinator at JCCH. “Expanding that idea that it’s not just about Japanese culture, but what it means to be Japanese in Hawaii, or your local identity.”
This 12 months’s summer time camp will embrace actions much like these featured in earlier years, corresponding to studying obon pageant dances, and humanities and crafts, in addition to mochi pounding, taiko drumming and kendo martial arts, Kochi stated.
Children can study extra about Japanese New Year celebrations, the Japanese immigration to Hawaii, and the sugar plantations. The camp can even embrace a go to to the Manoa Heritage Center, the place kids will find out about ahupuaa and the significance of neighborhood.
The emphasis on neighborhood, which might be built-in into numerous classes all through the camp, was a call primarily based on JCCH’s bigger purpose to construct a complete pipeline that helps kids set up a way of neighborhood, stated Nate Gyotoku, JCCH president and government director.
This purpose is accompanied by the hope that these values and relationships will finally assist them transition into maturity as they start constructing skilled connections in school or work settings, Gyotoku stated.
While the summer time camp introduces this idea to the youngest members of the neighborhood, Gyotoku stated one other program is geared to younger adults, the Ohana Cohort Program, which teaches expertise associated to nonprofit work, neighborhood and find out how to be extra concerned.
“We used to do a lot more school groups that would come in tours … but we would only have them for maybe a couple of hours,” he stated. “This way, we’ll have fewer kids, but we’ll have almost a full week with them. So hopefully they build stronger relationships.”
Camp registration is open to kids of any ethnicity, with the purpose to supply kids locally new and beneficial experiences that can assist them higher perceive their native id, Kochi stated.
“We’ll be teaching the kids that it’s not just our story that we’re talking about,” she stated, “but the stories of many who arrived before us.”
Registration for JCCH’s Tanoshii Hawaii Keiki Camp will stay open till April 28. To register, go to bit.ly/3Ko2VQn. The camp is scheduled to run June 26-30, and registration is $300 per little one. JCCH members obtain a reduced price of $275.
Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a nationwide service group that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points and communities.