On Thursday, April 25th, 2024, the De Britto International Youth Camp participants arrived at De Britto College, excited about the activities that awaited them. The first day started with a gamelan performance by Gangsa Kukila and a dance named Tari Klana Topeng presented by one of De Britto College’s students, Mohan Kalandara.  

The ceremony proceeded with a speech by Mr. FX. Catur Supatmono, S.Pd., M.Pd., the headmaster of De Britto College, who gave a presentation on the school’s profile. Meanwhile, the Rector of De Britto College, Pater Sugiyo Pitoyo, S.J. also gave an interactive welcome by direct discussion with the participants. In his speech, Pater Sugiyo Pitoyo, S.J. discusses participants’ hopes and aspirations during and after the De Britto International Youth Camp. His welcoming speech ended with the striking of a bende as symbolism for the start of the De Britto International Youth Camp 2024

The next activity was a Tour De Campus where the participant got a chance to look around at the De Britto College campus environment. The activities continued with a Language and Culture session as the day’s main event. Each participant was given a small book containing information about Indonesian culture, ranging from currency, traditional food, and traditional clothing, to commonly used Indonesian language. Then all participants were divided into six groups, each group consisting of members from different countries. 

They were taught about commonly used Indonesian languages by the instructors who were none other than students from  De Britto College. The participants got their lesson in several places in school. The instructors who taught participants made this session interactive with games, such as throwing a ball to determine who would try to speak Indonesian first. After that, there was an ice-breaking activity in the form of a guessing game. Participants were given a picture placed on their heads, and they had to guess the animal in the picture based on the clues given by their group members.

The Sharing and Reflection were the next sessions. Each participant in the group expressed their opinions about the concerns that are occurring in their respective countries. After each participant voiced their grievances, they connected each problem with the others to reach the same basic idea, find solutions, and hope to resolve these issues in their respective countries. Participants then gathered and presented the results of their group discussions to the other groups, represented by one of the group members. In this session, the groups also demonstrated the cheers they created together.

“Education is what brings me here, what I see in many countries in Southeast Asia especially, that education is a very big problem right now. There’s a very big gap between the poor and the rich in education. I think that we all deserve the same education regardless of our financial background. The reason I joined this camp is that I want to know how education in another country is and to figure out what kind of solutions can be implemented here in Indonesia. From our discussion that we did earlier, I can conclude that the solution is we as a youth must use our voices as much as we can because what makes us different from the previous generations is that we have much more care and attention to this kind of problem and other small issues that are not brought to the surface but still important. With many platform inventions such as TikTok, Instagram, etc. that Gen Z uses, we can bring out this matter and talk about it more globally so we can solve it together,” said Camelia, a participant from St. Louis High School Surabaya.

The event ended with a reflection session in the hall. The participants reflected on their impressions when meeting and interacting with people of different backgrounds and concerns that are brought up at the De Britto International Youth Camp.