Children’s summer camp aims to fight racism

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Across the country this summer, countless children are flocking to summer camps. Most learn to swim or participate in arts and crafts activities. But here in Durham, North Carolina, the kids are attending camp this summer in hopes of fighting racism.

Dr Ronda Taylor Bullock is the founder of weare, a non-profit organization based in Raleigh-Durham. They are also the only group in the country to offer a summer camp with the sole mission of teaching children about racism. The idea is to educate children to be anti-racist during their formative years.

Curiosity, empathy is different with young children. The desire to be a good person is different with young children, and I think during the core years, if we can be more intentional, we can make a difference, Dr Bullock said.

This is not your regular summer camp. Children in Grades 1-5 are often asked to talk about their own experiences with racism.

You want them to have fun, but you are grappling with a very serious subject. And was very clear with the parents from the start that your kids could come into this space and cry, Dr Bullock explained of the camp.

One of those campers is Tatiana Shields, 11, who has been with the program for four years.

Even though we are talking about difficult topics, everyone is there for each other so I’m not afraid when I try to share something, Shields said of his experience in the camp.

Perhaps her most memorable experience this year was painting a self-portrait and using multiple colors in a palace to create the color of her own skin. She considers herself multiracial.

It was interesting to find out how to do it. I never thought I would use yellow or red to do a skin color, the 11-year-old said.

Shields’ mother Tanya wants this future 6th grader to go to college with a strong sense of racial identity and the ability to call out to others when racism might arise.

Part of our fear of racism is that we don’t have the language. We don’t know how to talk about it, she said.

The whole idea of ​​Weare’s anti-racism camp is to teach children empathy and to open their eyes from an early age to the world around them in the hope that they will go out into the world with points of view. more tolerant view.

For Dr Bullock, labor won’t end with summer. She helps create programs that preschools in the Raleigh area can use to talk about racism.

The window of hope is so much wider with children than it is with adults, she said.

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