Camp Co-Create Team
You might be wondering who’s actually planning and making this camp come to life? From coming up with the initial idea, defining the concept, setting up a schedule, planning accommodation and activities, making promotional materials, and much much more besides, this camp is a co-creation of three students - Alma (14), Lien (16) and Olly (16), with support from one of our facilitators - Luke (38).
We all met through Banana mountain, with Alma being the latest addition, having joined last October but living abroad part of the year. Since we came up with the idea at one of our regular community camps (where students, staff and parents come together for a mixture of practical work, planning, theoretical exploration and just plain fun), we have been meeting once a week to discuss and distribute the work needed to make it all happen.
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While we may be the main organisers, as the date of the event approaches we will be receiving a lot of help from other young people, friends, facilitators and parents from the Banana Mountain community to prepare the site, organise accommodation, and host and facilitate the event itself. We are lucky that in our community we have a wealth of experience organising events, festivals, pop-up restaurants, off-grid cafes, retreats and democratic schools!
Olly
Olly (16 years old) has been a student at Banana mountain since day one of its existence. His hobbies include sewing, drawing, painting and music. Even though his hobbies do not include “participating in meetings”, he does attend almost all of them. The experiences of working together to build up a school and community combined with an alternative upbringing has led him to have a passion for democratic education and drive to keep being involved in the project even though he has decided to follow his ambitions and move on to studying fashion design at a specialist college.
Lien
Lien (16 years old) has been at Banana Mountain since the very start as well as participating in the practice of Self Directed Education her whole life. Through these experiences Lien has developed a deep sensitivity for group dynamics, profound emotional intelligence, sophisticated facilitation skills and a refined capacity for creative response-ability which she applies in a formal role as community coordinator (together with others). Her passions are singing, reading, team sports and wind-surfing. Her openness and curiosity mean she is easily inspired by subjects and people, and rarely bored.
Alma
Alma (14 years old) lives with her family on a small farm on the island of Bornholm (Denmark) with her cows, chickens, guinea pigs and a dog. Her family also has a piece of land in Spain where she lives for a few months in the winter. Her passions are horses, drawing and singing. She has been a part of the Banana Mountain community since October 2023.