Over The Wall is pleased to be partnering with online training developers, adaptiVLE, to create online activity camps for the seriously ill children and families that it had been preparing to welcome to camps across the UK in 2020.
Camp in the Cloud, which is due to launch next month, will help children, young people and their families reach beyond the boundaries of serious illness to discover a world of mischief, magic and new possibilities. Although hit hard by the social distancing measures introduced to combat COVID-19, with the cancellation of all of 2020 camps, Camp in the Cloud is Over The Wall’s innovative response – aiming to reach out to children in their own homes.
With the help of adaptiVLE, Over The Wall plan to convert the camp into an online experience, with digital versions of some of the activities the children would normally have participated in at camp along with a few new surprises. Camp in the Cloud will offer a virtual world to explore, twinned with video-conference team events and real-world resource packs couriered to the campers. By bringing these elements together into a blended experience, the online camp aims to retain much of the social interaction of the real-world equivalent.
Natalie Marshall, Director of Services said: “We’re very excited to be working with adaptiVLE to help deliver camps virtually. Our camps are all about building resilience, encouraging campers to see past perceived limitations and reaching for their goals, and in many ways, the pandemic is making us live true to our words by moving our entire camp programme online. We’re thankful to adaptiVLE for their vision and our funders and donors for making this possible.”
adaptiVLE Managing Director, Lewis Carr, said, “It’s amazing to be able to do something that is a direct response to the problems the world is currently facing and for such a worthwhile cause. Our team are working from home themselves, so we’re all excited to be playing in a virtual activity camp, especially as it’s something that hasn’t been built before.”
Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children with serious illness and the resulting increased sense of isolation, Over The Wall has launched an emergency appeal to help weather the storm and to ensure that physical camps will resume as soon as possible.
