ACN supported summer camps benefit over 30 thousand youths worldwide
Camps take place in 11 different countries, with a particular focus on regions marked by war, displacement and instability.
Every year pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) supports the organisation of youth summer camps by local churches.
This year, ACN is supporting 407 summer camps, through 46 projects in 11 countries, reaching 33,631 children and young people.
The impact is particularly significant in countries marked by war, displacement and instability.
Syria, Lebanon and Ukraine alone account for more than 85 per cent of all participants in summer camps supported by ACN.
Syria accounts for 17,855 participants across 230 camps – more than half the total – followed by Lebanon, with 7,465 participants across 61 camps, and Ukraine, with 3,518 participants across 74 camps.
Many of these camps are specifically aimed at children with disabilities and refugees.
These initiatives are much more than recreational activities, they offer protection, pastoral care, healing and hope for children and young people who have grown up in contexts of conflict, poverty or exile.
ACN’s support is not merely limited to camps. Other pastoral activities with children in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Togo and Venezuela, have benefited a further 5,230 participants across nine initiatives, meaning that overall, ACN’s support has reached 38,861 children and young people through 416 camps and pastoral activities worldwide.
Behind the numbers are concrete examples of how the Church remains close to the younger generations precisely where they most need to feel accompanied, listened to and supported.
Claude Semaan, coordinator of Faith and Light in Syria, an international movement fostering spiritual growth among people with disabilities, explains that “the camp gives us tremendous energy for the year ahead. It is a space of hope, a space of real life”.
Syria has been going through more than a decade of instability, civil war and episodic persecution, and for many children the summer camps are an important oasis of tranquillity. “It is the kind of life that we are no longer able to live in our homes. We are losing what a normal life should be, but at the camp we are able to live it with complete freedom, with joy, and even through our pain, which we share together,” she tells ACN.
The local Churches remain grateful to the benefactors who make these initiatives possible, as explained by Fr Fadi Azar, from Syria. “I would like to thank ACN for helping us with our summer camps. Were it not for your help – which is so vital for our Christians – they would not be able to take part in these gatherings of prayer, meditation and joy. Thanks to you, they are able to eat well and travel to the mountain location where we hold our camp. The families look forward to this; they look forward to it every year with great joy. Without your financial support, it simply wouldn’t be possible. I cannot find the words to thank you enough at this moment. We are praying for you, truly; our camps would not have taken place without your generosity. Thank you, ACN.”
