The opening stage at Mito Camp
Between the 23 of us, like DNA, we made a special creation unique and unlike anything before us. This living bubble of human expression, laughter, and learning that existed for six-days on end was what we called TOKIHA 2018.
23 counselors and 48 campers (38 campers at Mito, 10 campers at Miura) joined together in this bubble and followed a dense curriculum designed by the college student counselors themselves. Through vigorous workshops like Academic Seminar, Scavenger Hunt, and What’s on Your Mind, campers widened their perspectives and gained curiosity in new fields. For example, STEM fields are typically male-dominated, but some female campers discovered their interest in computer coding when they had a chance to work with Gogo Boards as a part of our technology-themed Scavenger Hunt.
At camp, all of the creation comes from the campers. Whether it was painting a self-portrait, or engineering a car, a spaghetti-marshmallow tower, or a robot-cooking-dog, campers collaborated on projects and ideas to produce incredible works of ingenuity. With counselors as their guides, campers could build on any idea they had. The freedom to play is a value we cherish.
Academic Seminar: Let’s Code! at Mito Camp
We break the status quo — we liberate our minds from it, and we do so with fierce courage and determination. We run with beautiful speed into the faculty of language, helping each other through the struggles of being non-native English speakers and foreign to the concepts of identity, self-discovery, and dreaming.
We do two things very well which may actually be two things in one: we facilitate introspection, gathering answers from inside ourselves, and we look towards the future with ideas on how to solve problems. At TOKIHA, we hope to continue this discourse of the self and how it connects to the world around us. Remember, although summer is over, your journey of self-discovery has not ended. Keep searching. The fireworks may have already gone off, but the glimmer remains in the night sky.
Keep searching.
Camper laughing at Miura Camp
Thank you for reading!