I have a long career in summer camps. I started one in Ethiopia in the 1960s while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer there and have owned and operated a boys camp in Maine for 30 years. When my son was trained and ready to enter the business, I returned to Africa in an effort to use the methodology of residential camp as a tool to make children aware of HIV/AIDS and to effect a change in behavior and attitude among the youth.

In May 2003 I visited South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya, in search of the best possible partner. I found one at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa. In conjunction with HIVSA (the psychosocial arm of the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, or PHRU), we started Camp Sizanani in January 2004 and have had 27 sessions of 10 days each for 3,300 children, mostly from Soweto, since then.

We have conducted the camps like summer camps in the US -- sports, swimming, theatre, arts and crafts, dancing, and nature -- but with three big differences:

* each child has an hour of Life Skills class each day;
* the children can only attend a single camp session; and
* we provide biweekly follow up programs in the form of Saturday Kids Clubs.

The Life Skills classes are taught in small (about 14 children) groups by at least two instructors, specially trained, and present issues of adolescence, dating, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, physical and psychological abuse, gender bias, opportunistic diseases associated with AIDS, crime, nutrition and self-esteem. The children, their parents, teachers and caregivers have all been enthusiastic in their endorsement of what they see as significant changes in the children.

We also have a leadership program where we train children to go into the schools as peer educators.

We have received grants from Elton John AIDS Foundation, MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Wall Street Cares, Red Ribbon Foundation, Gilead Sciences, Inc., and the Jackson Foundation, as well as gifts from some 1000 individuals. We have had media coverage in the Johannesburg Star, the Christian Science Monitor, BBC-TV and radio, and the Boston Globe.

We plan to open a new camp every 18-24 months and want to go around Africa, particularly in the heaviest AIDS affected areas. We are talking with groups in Durban and Cape Town, with a view to starting, or enabling others to start, additional camps in South Africa. Our second and third camps, in partnership with God's Golden Acre in KwaZulu Natal, and the Ndlovu Medical Centre in Limpopo, opened in March 2007.