Our Story
“How on earth did you end up running the Hunger Games for kids ?” I get asked this a lot and it’s story i’ve shared many times. I’ve been teaching nature connection with kids since 2001 and have worked with every age of kid from every background. Primary and secondary schools, colleges, universities, pupil referral units , youth probation, and within the prison system. For all this time I was always looking for a hook as a way to draw teens into nature. Not in an earnest educational way necessarily but in a playful way. My philosophy is that if kids have fun in the woods and associate it with positive experiences then nature will be a resource they can tap into at other times. A place they yearn for. But how to get them into the woods in the first place?
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In 2012 about halfway through watching the first Hunger Game film I knew i’d found answer. By the end of the film an idea had already formulated in my mind that the Hunger Games would become the Trojan Horse of Nature Connection I’d been looking for. The books became bestsellers and the films became cult. Kids wanted to follow their heroes of Katniss, Gale and Peeta into the woods and learn the skills they had employed to ‘survive the Arena’. This was a game changer. Kids self enrolled rather than us relying on parents booking their kids onto nature based camps as they saw the value in them.
We ran our first camp in the summer of 2013 with seven kids, myself and two helpers, Janet and Hugh. It was a small affair but we could see the potential of things to come. By 2014 we had grown into double figures (just!), and I met Sam Kouzarides, who was to become my right hand man and co-facilitator. The director and founder of Wildwise Chris Salisbury even came and ran a few of the camps with me.
The most pleasing aspect of the camps was the deep nature connective experiences the children would have. Their health forms would be filled out by parents telling us of their fear of creepy crawlies, spiders and bugs; but within an hour of being with us they would be lying under a pile of bracken waiting for an unsuspecting tribute to walk past. Likewise they would turn up with white trainers they didn’t want to get dirty but the next day be begging me to use my brown spray paint to camouflage their trainers and give them a slight advantage in the Arena. The power of ‘The Games’ began to take over and be the motivating factor we hoped it would be. Children would have tawny Owls land in trees next to them, or deer watch past them in the moonlight. Last summer we had a huge king hare walk past several kids hidden in the woods and a barn owl hunting mice over the kid’s heads. We would see the light in their eyes as they shared their stories.
As the years rolled on we developed a more sophisticated program design and created a special community feel and vibe each summer. Kids loved the open, relaxed, inclusive and non judgemental spirit of the camps and kept coming back. Friendships were made and kids came back each year to meet their new found friends. Word spread and the camps grew in number .Adult volunteers , busy in their working lives, would come and give up their time to support the camps in the summer as they loved it as much as the kids. We all need to play, be in community, sit around a fire and spend time in nature and so many adults joined us for multiple years.
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​Kids became ‘loyal’ to the camps and would come back year after year. In 2013 and 2014 several 13 or 14 year olds attended the camps who loved it so much and formed such strong friendships that they have come every year since, and have become the backbone of the staff team. Annie and Naomi, who attended in 2013, became part of the staff the moment once they turned 18. As did Morgan; he came in 2014 as a young teen and has never left, becoming the admin magician behind the scenes as well as the volunteer co-ordinator. Saul also first came in 2013 as a cheeky chap and for the previous 5 years has provided delicious food for us bringing his expertise from working in the restaurant industry . Artie was also from that generation and became our Head of Pastoral Care and has played a huge role in helping to create the emotionally supportive and understanding culture of the camp.
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So many other adults passed through the Hunger Games valley as it became known and have brought a wealth of knowledge, skills, songs, music and energy. Kara in her gorilla suit, Jay’s cooking, pirate Simon still teaches firemaking, Aggy with her violin, Yangus organising the games and seeming to hold more together than he should be able to at his age ! Angus has been the site manager for a few years now doing the hard graft behind the scenes of setting up and packing down the whole operation. Too numerous to mention are the hundreds of other adults and parents who volunteered on the camps and got to watch their kids shine.
So here we after over 11 years and 27 camps . We’ve left the umbrella of WildWise and are looking forward to moving into a new era under the new name of Woodland Rebels.
