Winners' Camp is a 7-day residential accelerated learning program for teens ages 13-17. Each program consists of 60 participants and is supported by a staff of 24 specially trained volunteers and a core staff of highly experienced professional facilitators. The staff to participant ratio is 1:3. The program is held at Kamehame Ridge (the ridge between Hawaii Kai and Waimanalo) at the newly renovated, Winners' Camp Foundation Conference Facility. Accelerated learning techniques are utilized extensively. To date, Winners' Camp has graduated over 12,000 participants and over 600 graduate support staff. Participants learn to create a positive sense of self-identity through a safe, supportive environment where they break through self-imposed limitations. By regularly setting, meeting, and achieving goals they have a dramatic experience of the exhilaration of "winning." This is winning where the opponent is one's own fears and self-doubts. By conquering challenging outdoor events, teens learn to recognize their own courage and self-confidence. By repeatedly going beyond what they thought they could do, they learn the joy of reaching their highest potential.

Participants are encouraged to develop concern for others through teamwork and team-building. In "taking a chance" on others - learning to trust - they discover the rich rewards of close and reliable friendships. Instruction in conflict-resolution and advanced communication techniques provide them with realistic ways to reduce conflict and improve cooperation in their lives. In discovering that conflict is counter-productive, they acquire more useful, workable methods of dealing with problems and challenges.

Participants learn specific techniques to improve skills, such as accelerated note-taking, memory training, visualization and creative thinking techniques, and self-management methods. However, the major force in improving grades and academic ability is the development of positive and constructive attitudes about their own capabilities. This Ohana Hawaii Teenager Leadership Training strives to give participants a taste of the knowledge of all times and ages; knowledge of how to look to the source, or as Hawai'ians term it, nana i ke kumu. Winners' Camp teaches teens to realize that true knowledge brings understanding and self-awareness, and will lead to a more positive and successful life. We teach the Five "R's" of Life: Respect, Responsibility, Resourcefulness, Restraint and Resilience!

Jammin' July 2007, July 22-28