RE: THE AFRO DANCE CAMP - JULY 16 TO JULY 23 2010 IN KITCHENER, ONTARIO

The Maritime Centre for African Dance (MCAD), formed in 2005 is an organization dedicated to teaching and promoting African Culture to children, youth and adults across Ontario and Canada. To date, MCAD has taught well over 200,000 children and adults in schools, community centres, camps and programs.

This organization was formed out of a need for traditional African cultural representation in the form of dance across Canada. It is a collective of individuals from Africa who are trained in traditional dance and ranges from the South, North, West and East of Africa.

MCAD’s adult troupe was recently most noted for being the only Canadian Group chosen to perform at President Obama’s African Inaugural Ball held in Washington, DC in January 2008.

As a part of its effort this year, MCAD has continued its popular Week Long Afro Dance camp which  - the past 4 years the camp has been held in Lockeport, (Nova Scotia), Digby, Nova Scotia, Taxis River (New Brunsiwck), Riverisde,( Prince Edward Island) and this year the camp will be held in Kitchener Ontario. This is the first time such a camp ever will have been held in Ontario.

The Afro Dance Camp will feature cultural dances from Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Congo; and learning to play traditional instruments such as the Marimba, (xylophone), djembe (drum) and mbira (thumb piano). Other activities, such as storytelling around a camp fire, provide the opportunity for children to participate in a long standing tradition common in Africa.

MCAD will also be partnering with different community groups to bring about children of different ethnicities to the camp.

This year the camp will be held at Camp Bingeman’s in Kitchener, Ontario. The campsites are picked in areas where individuals of African Descent do not have access to African Dance, Music or Culture in general. Ultimately both the town and the surrounding areas are introduced to the rich culture of Africa with the Live Show at the end of the 10 days, featuring the participants and musicians. The camp will have 42 spots for participants ages 8-21, 8 camp leaders, 8 assistant camp leaders, a Camp Director and a Camp Co-ordinator. The participants will be coming from all across Ontario for the Week Long Afro Dance workshop.

The past 4 camps have bought over 150 participants from various regions across Canada to celebrate in African culture, tradition and dance.

The assistant camp leaders work as volunteers to become camp leaders. Both assistant camp leaders and camp leaders receive MCAD training which includes basic first aid, leadership management, time management and conflict resolution, team building, stress management among other workshops. All MCAD instructors are trained for a week and a half prior to the camp.

The camp will be held on July 16 to July 23 2010 in Kitchener, it includes our new workshops on South African gumboot dance, and batik art. In addition to having experienced and qualified instructors in standard first aid, and conflict resolution as they are all trained before the camp, the camp boasts continuity in leadership and having a positive effect on the camp attendees. In this camp, as in all our past camps, our goal is to create community, culturally sensitive leaders.  

This camp will provide an opportunity for education, cultural enhancement, self growth – esteem and confidence, team work and self identification. In such a dynamic environment, the students will interact with peers and others, and will indefinitely learn and share in the different cultural activities. Although there were many participants from last year’s camp who wanted to return to this year’s camp, our goal is to have new youth and children attend this upcoming camp to expose more children to the culture.  There is only capacity for a total of 42 participants for the weeklong camp.

The camp creates a rare opportunity for youth, children and adults to have an African experience in Ontario.

RE: THE AFRO DANCE CAMP - JULY 16 TO JULY 23 2010 IN KITCHENER, ONTARIO