Hello, this is Tom, the founder of Campship. Today, I'd like to introduce "CAMPSHIP ROOTS," a junior leader program for junior high school students that we've launched as a new initiative ahead of the program's release in the summer of 2025.
What is CAMPSHIP ROOTS?
To sum up CAMPSHIP ROOTS in one sentence, it is a leadership program specifically for junior high school students .
However, it will not be organized as a separate program. A ROOTS course for junior high school students will be set up within the regular program, and those who wish to participate can do so.
Junior high school students who participate in ROOTS generally follow the same schedule as participants in elementary school and younger, but there are times when they take on roles similar to those of leaders, and exclusive content (such as leadership training) is provided for ROOTS participants.
The purpose of CAMPSHIP ROOTS
Through this program, junior high school students will learn the skills and experience necessary to become leaders in the world, and experience the joy and thrill of using these skills to participate in camp.
Specifically, we aim to achieve the following expected effects:
- Systematically learn about leadership and broaden your perspective
- Develop your leadership skills and build your confidence
- Experience the sense of accomplishment of working together as a small team to accomplish a mission
- Opportunities to pursue individual interests in greater depth
- Strengthening connections and building communities with peers and current leaders
Why did you decide to start ROOTS?
It all started when a sixth-grade elementary school participant personally told us his passionate desire to become a leader at Campship Academy when he became a junior high school student.
For us, it gives us great pleasure when the children who came as participants feel that "Campship is a place where they belong" and return as leaders.
On the other hand, at present, the application requirement for leaders is high school students or older, so we are not able to create opportunities for junior high school students to play active roles as leaders.
As you participate in the program multiple times and naturally begin to demonstrate leadership skills, it is natural to feel that you would like to contribute to the program as a leader next time.
Wanting to respond to such passionate feelings, we consulted with the management team and ROOTS was born.
What exactly do you do at ROOTS?
As this is our first attempt at this, we will be refining the content in the future, but we hope to provide activities that will achieve the desired results stated in the objectives.
- Leadership lecture by Tom, CEO of Campship Academy
- Safety training (possibly qualifications) and training to acquire the knowledge and attitude required of leaders
- Group work to solve specific missions as a group
- Content planning for elementary school participants
- Leadership discussion and output
- High-level content for junior high school students, including art and trekking
- Conversations with current leaders, interviews, and participation in evening leadership meetings
(Bonus) About the name ROOTS
The word "roots" includes the meaning of "origin," and we hope that this project will become a kind of origin for the leaders of Campship, which will continue for a long time to come.
But actually, we didn't come up with this name. Camp Wenonah, a Canadian summer camp that we've been keeping an eye on for a while, uses a similar name for a program they offer for junior high school students, and we thought it was an intuitive and wonderful name, so we decided to borrow it.
