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Ourfertileground.org

Our Fertile Ground is helping solve the challenges facing youth by providing supportive community environments where children can thrive. The non-profit organization uses a peer support model in which trained teen counselors provide education and social support to children and adolescents living with chronic and life-threatening illnesses.
The residential and day camps are supported and staffed by volunteer medical and nursing professionals. Teen counselors are trained by professionals to offer education and support through informal, fun activities. The residential and day camp programs offer a unique opportunity for participants to interact in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere that fosters understanding, acceptance of their condition, and proper emotional development. Camp participants include children and adolescents living with chronic and life-threatening illness, as well as those affected but yet not living with illness. This promotes normalizing illness, contributing to improved understanding and removing stigma. Participants share their knowledge, experience, and concerns as well as participate in educational sessions and recreational camping activities.

Description:
Camp Program Themes
Significant themes of the residential and day camp programs are:
To enable participants to meet others with others who are similarly affected.
To provide an enjoyable camp experience where everyone is accepted without judgment.
To offer parents a break from the daily worries of raising a child living with a chronic or life-threatening illness.
To foster more independence by providing information about the importance of maintaining daily medication schedules.
To teach participants that living with illness is not a restrictive lifestyle.
To have fun and make new friends.
To enable children to interact with their healthcare providers in a non-clinical setting.
To provide opportunities for participants to be part of a cross-cultural camp community.
Addressing the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
Funds are raised to sponsor HIV-infected teens and volunteer counselors to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to participate in a residential camp for those infected and affected with HIV. This combined USA-SA camp provides an ideal opportunity for cultural and practical exchange around living with HIV. In the United States, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, many of the challenges which face youths and families in South Africa have been overcome. They share their experiences with taking antiretroviral (ARV) medication, which just recently has become available to people in South Africa, the benefits and the side-effects. For American youth the exchange is equally important. There is a much higher rate of adherence to HIV medication among South African youth than there are among young Americans infected with HIV. South African youth have the opportunity to share their experiences and continued motivation for taking their medication under severe, and often life threatening circumstances.
Two six-day camps per year are scheduled in Cape Town; the first in July and the second in December. In order to strengthen and maintain the support network established at the camps, at the conclusion of the camps, communication among camp members and between Americans and South Africans is strongly encouraged, via telephone, e-mail, regular mail, and for those who remain in the area, outings and get-together's.
Family Support
The parents and caregivers of children and adolescents who are ill are often themselves in need of nurturing and care. For this reason the camp programs are open to parents, siblings and caretakers where they too can enjoy a fun, relaxing and educational experience. Psychosocial support and information sessions are facilitated by trained professionals who are able to spend extended periods with parents, caregivers and siblings in an informal environment.

History:
Fundraising Activities (2008-2009)
To accommodate the increasing needs of children living with chronic and life-threatening illness, we are currently conducting a fundraising campaign to expand into the comprehensive healthcare support center that will include a permanent site for the camp. This will mean that would offer year-round, nearly one third of the operating budget for each camp goes to renting the facility. We have currently identified a site which is fairly well isolated, aesthetically beautiful, and close to Cape Town. The cost of this site Klein Water Fall Farm 4.2 acres is 1.5 million for farmland property.
Teens, their parents or caregivers will be engaged in the process of building the camp site with the assistance of volunteer artisans and educators, plumbers and electricians, both from South Africa and the United States. Additional material and transportation costs will be budgeted after the purchase of the land and plans for the building and surrounding area are complete.
The Reach One, Touch One fundraising project is organized around The Star Thrower theme.
The counselors and camp participants are raising funds for the long-term sustainability of the camp by selling key chains, cards and lapel pins. We believe that by involving the volunteers and beneficiaries of the camp programs builds self-confidence, self-esteem and self-efficacy. Even though most South African youth live in situations of poverty, they are not comfortable with being dependent on handouts. They are enthusiastic fundraiser's and have big dreams for Our Fertile Ground.
The Star Thrower
As the old man walked along the beach.
At dawn, he noticed a young man ahead
of him picking up starfish and flinging
them into the sea. Finally catching up
with him, he asked why he was doing this.
The young man answered that the
stranded starfish would die if left
until the morning sun.
But the beach goes on for miles
and there are millions of starfish,
countered the old man. How can
your effort make a difference?
The young man looked at the starfish
in his hand and threw it to safety in the waves.
It made a difference to that one, he said.

• Loren Eiseley, adapted by Joel Barker

Fertileground may not reach everyone in Africa but the ones we do reach, reach out to others.

Contact people:

Robert Sr Shea, Project Director, (phone), (email) Jawya Shea, Executive Director, (phone), (email)

Main office number: (415) 454-8544
TDD number: (415) 302-1519
Office fax number: (415) 454-8544

Address:

1871secondstreet san rafael, CA 94901 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.ourfertileground.org

Directions:

take 4th street to IHOP Bus stop we are across the street from IHOP   Nearest Bus Stop: IHOP 4th San Rafael, 5 minute walk

Last updated on September 16, 2009