Progress Through Partnership – You’re only as strong as your Team
Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much – Helen Keller
Every Camp NexGen™ starts with a vision. For 2022, that vision was expansion. Our first camp, just a few months shy of a global pandemic, welcomed 50 students over 2-day in Lagos, Nigeria. The familiar territory of Nigeria being home for me and our entire team made planning manageable, albeit rushed. Fast forward to 2022 – we wanted to host the same camp in a new location (where 85% of our team had never traveled to) and triple the number of campers. We are an ambitious bunch.
2019 SPORT x STEM Camp — Lagos, Nigeria // LGRRG
A portion of our volunteers & Camp NexGen™ Partners // LGRRG
A camp like Camp NexGen™ Zimbabwe is a direct result of the foundation built through many partnerships. While there are practical reasons to co-host our camp with other organizations, we particularly love doing so because we find that our local ties get deeper, stronger, and more sustainable. It validates our work when local and international organizations lean into LGRRG’s vision and come alongside to share their time, talent, and resources to see it come to fruition.
To that end, we want to publicly say a special THANK YOU to all our esteemed partners: ACES Youth Soccer Academy, Bhaskar Dentistry & Ramji Family, Eaglesvale School, Global Air Drone Academy, KB Mpofu, MaxPro Fitness, Miracle Missions, Push The Button ,and Zimbabwe Flying Labs.
ACES Youth Soccer Academy, a local soccer academy in Harare, Zimbabwe for the five coaches sent to lead the sport section of our daily program. This session was bright and early in the morning really brought out the campers’ energy and set the tone for the best day ahead.
Global Air Drone Academy (GADA) and Co-Founder, Eno Umoh — a long-time partner of LGRRG, for leading our STEAM effort and designing/implementing an engaging Build-A-Drone workshop that the campers thoroughly enjoyed.
Eaglesvale School led by Headmaster Dennis Anderson, for granting up the best venue and accommodations we could’ve hoped for our camp and the added bonus of our marimba band welcome!
Miracle Missions Team led by Jacque Anderson who worked tirelessly to help us plan the camp, bring the best volunteers ever, translate, and so much more.
ACES Academy Coaching Team at Camp! // LGRRG
Eno Umoh teaching our campers about the Skydio drone // LGRRG
Headmaster, Dennis Anderson welcoming the campers with opening remarks // LGRRG
Camper getting a feel of the MaxPro equipment // LGRRG
MaxPro Fitness for donating exercise equipment to the camp that the kids LOVED!
Zimbabwe Flying Labs for showing our campers that the drone industry is not reserved for the West alone.
Ime & KB teaching young Benjamin about cameras and drones! // LGRRG
Camper getting a feel of the MaxPro equipment // LGRRG
A professional Zimbabwean drone pilot telling the campers about his day-to-day as a commercial drone pilot // LGRRG
Last and certainly not least, our cast of volunteers — Becket, Courtney, Darshana, Mercy, Molly, Ngum, Panashe, Pat, Rahil, Ritesh, Sara, Savan, Tatenda, & Willie — who spent several hours packing personalized gifts bags for each camper on the eve of camp starting, to showing up daily for our campers every day from dawn till daybreak taking care of items large and small to make sure the camp was a massive success. Our volunteers are the lifeblood of the work we do, and we could not have pulled off this camp without each and every one of you.
A portion of our volunteers // LGRRG