More than 6,300 Seventh-day Adventist teenagers from around the world descended on gathered in Nairobi Jamhuri Park, Nairobi, Kenya, to participate in the first Pan-African Pathfinder Camporee.
More than 6,300 Seventh-day Adventist teenagers from around the world descended on gathered in Nairobi Jamhuri Park, Nairobi, Kenya, to participate in the first Pan-African Pathfinder Camporee. The Pathfinder program is a social and spiritual development program for young people in the church.
Delegates attended from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the United States, lending a global cast to the event. The Pan-African Camporee ran from Aug. 14 to Aug. 23.
“In Africa we have big people, older people in Pathfinders,” said Pastor Mulumba Tshimanga, East-Central Africa region youth director for the church and Pan-African Camporee co-coordinator. Pastor Mulumba went on to say that close to 60 percent of youth in the East-Central Africa region of the church are actively participating in the Pathfinder program.
The event adopted the theme “Hearts Touching Hearts,” reflecting the 2003 emphasis on compassion selected by the world church youth department. Pastor Tshimanga adds, “We need to give them [youth] hope, encourage them… because of AIDS and other diseases going around. We need to give them hope and tell them that they can still make it.”
During the 10 days of the camporee, organizers invited medical professionals to educate Pathfinders about AIDS and HIV. The medical team also offered free HIV/AIDS tests to campers, who were urged by Peter Chepkoyn, a Pathfinder from the Lavington, Nairobi club, to use “conduct not condoms” as the preventative against the disease.
Special guest, Francis Fgei, Nairobi Provincial Commissioner, told the assembly that what he sees taught among the Pathfinders is what the Kenyan government is also striving to accomplish.