Importance of Culture Camps

Importance of Culture Camps

I believe culture camps are extremely important for adoptees, especially transnational adoptees. I should clarify that I mean culture camps specifically targeting adoptees. There are other culture camps such as Concordia Language Camps, Supsogui Hosu!!!!! which are great, but I’m not speaking about them in this post. Culture camps provide cultural and heritage background for the adoptees, which I believe many appreciate later on in life. I for one am appreciative from the Korean culture knowledge I gained from the camps as I grew up.  I know many older adoptees who inform me they wish they had culture camps when they were growing up. Another benefit of culture camps is for the parents. Culture camps that target adoptees usually provide support and classes for the parents to learn more about their child’s heritage and culture, but also about issues that plague parents such as their child’s identity and potential birth searches. Finally, these camps allow adoptees to be surrounded by people exactly like them! There is no other place for many transnational adoptees to gather. I believe this really helps young adoptees, it helped me to know there were many other people like me. This is especially true because usually their home communities are not predominantly their race (Asian), let alone adoptees with the same heritage. These three main reasons why I believe culture camps are extremely important for adoptees.