Updated 27 August 2008
Once again, The Council of European Jamaats is holding its annual Sweden Summer Camp with the motto "Towards Excellence". This year, the camp is a combination of the Girls Summer Camp run by the Khawateen Committee and the Boys Summer Camp run by the Education Committee, which has been running since 2001. The camps for boys and girls are separate camps, run by independent administration teams.
Based in BarnensÖ (Children's Island) on the outskirts of Stockholm, the campsite is in a picturesque location perfect to get away from the demands of the modern world. This is the first time the CoEJ has selected this site. There, the boys and girls are put through a program on the path "Towards Excellence: Educational, Spiritual, Physical, Personal". Aided and guided by youth mentors and experienced teachers, the campers experience an assortment of development opportunities: in the classroom, on the sports field, talking in front of their peers, competing in their groups and individually with their mentors.
Each camp has key concepts that they will be covering. Examples include the concept of mentoring, (http://www.coej.org/sweden-2007/concepts/mentoring) public speaking, (http://www.coej.org/sweden-2007/concepts/public-speaking) and lessons (http://www.coej.org/sweden-2007/concepts/lessons).
More information is provided at the given links.
The Council of European Jamaat's website (http://www.coej.org/) is updated daily with diaries from both the boys and the girls camps. Photos are available, as well as the mentors and campers experiences. The concepts underpinning the camp are also available to read.
A male camper says "Today we woke up and went to breakfast where there was some swedish cheese; it was delicious. Striaght after breakfast we went to do some sports. We started with Arif Damani on football and then we played tag rugby. After lunch, we prayed and had lessons - we were soo tired. Our first with Suhail Valji, about time and how we should spend time as death could occur at any moment. Our second lesson with Sajjad bha Hassam was really good. Third lesson was with the Sheik and was about Gods favours which made us very considerate of our actions. The fourth lesson was about public speaking with Shan-E-Abbas Hassam: he explained that posture, looking everywhere, in the room and hand gestures are all very important when public speaking.
Straight after lessons, we had pasta and went for Maghribain salaat. After that, we played american football with our planet and great mentors, Shoaib bha and Shabir bha. We then had PDT were we played various quizzes and had post bag and news brief. We came home and had table-tennis matches and planet time, now were knocked out and going to bed.
Sheik gave us a talk in between Zohr and Asr and told us a hadith of the Prophet . “Two days are equal then you are at loss and if the 2nd day is worse than the first then you are cursed. We feel that today was better than yesterday and tomorrow we shall continue to strive "Towards Excellence”
A girls mentor says “Self Raising Flour, Sugar, Eggs, Butter! Any idea what the campers were up to today??? CAKE BAKING!!!
Today Sue Reed taught the girls how to bake cakes. The girls came out with sticky fingers and doughy faces having enjoyed their cake baking lesson. However, the cakes turned out some what flat as they found out after baking the cakes that they had used plain flour instead of self-raising flour! Oppps! However, the girls were in good spirit and were still excited to decorate the cakes the next day.
Today the girls began Quran Class. It was beautiful to see all the girls reciting and learning together.
Today, compared to the other days was a lot more relaxed and we had some time to reflect on the days and see what we have achieved and Inshallah hope to strive towards excellence the rest of the camp and hope this experience reflect positively on our futures.”
Well wishers are encouraged to visit the site and leave messages for the campers, selections of which are read out daily at the camp. Visit www.coej.org
For further information, please visit www.coej.org or email secretariat@coej.org