This Leadership Camp was made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the following corporations:

The camp was organized with a schedule packed of activities including two main workshop sessions on Saturday and two workshop sessions on Sunday. Besides, it also had four concurrent elective workshops held on Saturday morning, a public speaking skills development session and an Open Discussion Forum held on Saturday night. All workshop sessions on Saturday focused on leadership development and those held on Sunday focused on the values of cultural herritage. The camp also had many team competition games, the Big Game, the Wall Newspaper Project to build team work and to add more fun into the learning programs.

The campers from all different regions were divided into twelve different teams. Each team was represented by a Vietnamese hero or heroine in the Vietnam history: Trung's siters, Ba Trieu, Tran Binh Trong, Tran Hung Dao, Quang Trung, Nguyen Thai Hoc, Le Loi, Nguyen Trai, Doan Thi Diem, Bui Thi Xuan, Ly Thuong Kiet and Nguyen Du.

Friday night was reserved for ice-breaking game and the campers had time to explore the camp as well as getting to know each other. The ice-breaking game was coodinated by the VCSA Chapter of Montreal, Canada and gave everyone a great time. There was also a late night game called "Life in the jungle" in which each participant was assigned to be an animal in the jungle that live under the survival rule "stronger animal eats weaker animal"... The game created lots of excitement and fun for the newly arrival campers.

Each camper at registration also received a riddle that they need to solve to find out which team they belong to and find out who their teammates were. The result of the "Team searching Game" were posted only half an hour before the Opening Ceremony on Saturday morning and those who could not solve the riddle would have to present themselves at the flag pole, in front of everyone else. The game was participated very well and most of the teams found themselves with each other except only for some exceptional cases.

Len Duong camp had the honor to welcome special guests who came to attend the Opening Ceremony at the camp: the Honorable Council member Martha Wong who was also the keynote speaker at the event; Mr. Martin Quach Huynh Ha, Executive Director of Research Development Institute; Mr. Nguyen Cao My, the President of the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinity; Mr. Long Nguyen, Vice-President of the Vietnamese community of Fort Worth, Texas and Mr. & Mrs. Truong Trong Trac, Editor of Ngay Nay Magazine.

The Saturday program started with the Keynote speech delivered by council member Martha Wong of city of Houston, focusing on volunteerism, promoting civic participation, getting involved with politics and sharing her inspiring thoughts on being an Asian American leader in the political arena of city of Houston. Following her talk was the four elective concurrent workshops that the campers could choose based on each camper's interest. The topic of the four concurrent workshops include Problem Solve/Team Build; Interpersonal skills development; Think Win/Win and Leadership in Corporate America. Each workshop was facilitated by a senior member of the Vietnamese Culture Science Association. In the afternoon, there was an interactive workshop on "Becoming a Leader" facilitated by Mrs. Huong Tran Nguyen, National Outstanding Teacher of the Year 1994, from California. Each of the team had the chance to discuss and to do a presentation on defining what leadership is and sharing their experiences in exposing the leadership skills in the projects involved with the community. The workshops were intertwined with group games and songs to create a fun environment to learn and keep the energy level of the campers high.

Communication is always a very important skill that a good leader has to have. One of the communication skills that a good leader needs to develop is the public speaking skill. The toastmaster session at the beginning of Saturday evening aimed to address this need. The 12 teams had the opportunity to practice the "think-on-your-feet" public speaking skills. All topics chosen was related to communnity issues, social issues and cultural heritage and cultural identity issues. The sessions were wrapped up by the debate competition among these groups. Following the Toastmaster session was the PowWow "candle-light" "camp fire" (due to the weather we couldn't have the camp fire out-door) with lots of group singing, games and music performances. There was also a separate Open Discussion Forum for those community activists who would like to share more of their experiences in community involvement. The forum was attended in parallel with the Candle Light pow-wow session and there were about 75 campers attended with many moving and inspiring stories that motivated and created even more enthusiasm toward community involvement among the campers.

Sunday was the day focused on Vietnamese heritage culture with the two workshops: "Why I want my son to keep the Vietnamese herritage" (Mr. Jeff Watkins, Director of YMCA International, Houston, Texas) and the Talk show on Vietnamese heritage and culture (Mr. Bao N. Nguyen, Chairman of Board of Directors of VCSA). Mr Jeff Watkins, director of YMCA International in Houston, Texas, shared with the campers his reflection of the Vietnamese culture in the eyes of an American. His fluent Vietnamese has impressed greatly everyone and made his session one of the most popular sessions in the camp. Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Bao, the chaiman of Board of Directors of the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, facilitated a Talk show about the Vietnamese culture values that need to be preserved and those values that we need to learn from the America Society. The talk show was participated by the four panelists who had different background: Miss Theresa My Vuong from San Jose, California who was born in America and currently a reporter for Viet San Jose Mercury News, Dr. Uyen N. Truong from Montreal, Canada who was born in Vietnam and came to Canada at a very young age, and Mr. Bao Q. Nguyen, an accountant from Houston, Texas and also a Leader of the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Society of Southern Region of the United States. The talk show focuses on cultural related issues and also the issue of "Going back to ones root" in the Vietnamese-American youths.

On Sunday afternoon, the teams participated in the Big Game "Quang Trung King's Battle" which tested their team work, their knowledge on the leadership skills they learned in the last two days and their ability to overcome the challenge to achieve the goal of the game. The game lasted about two hours and a half and the campers enjoyed it to the fullest.

The twelve teams of Len Duong camp had the opportunity to showcase their talents and their teamwork during the Camp Fire Session on Sunday night. These performances were mixed with songs and games which made the event a really memmorable one. Despite the bad weather which created some minor problems in setting up the camp fire, the campers' enthusiasm helped to create a great camp fire program. The camp fire was followed with a great supper of Vietnamese famous noodle "Pho" provided by the Camp staffs. The evaluation session was also conducted to obtain feedbacks of the campers about the camp.

On Monday morning the Wall Newspaper Team Project was concluded and evaluated. Although each team did not have enough time to prepare for the Wall Newspaper project, all twelve teams turned in their Newspaper which caused a very pleasant surprise for the Camp organizing committees. Each of the Wall Newspaper was full of stories, inspriring poems, and even pictures and decoration that make the camp really memorable. You can check these wall newspapers out on our web site pictures session for Len Duong camp.  The teamwork that each campers built for the team demonstrated throught the product of these Wall Newspapers and surely would have a great impact on each camper. The Closing Ceremony then started around noon. In this ceremony, the best teams in different category was recognized and the campers also had the chance to share their thoughts and comments about the camp. Despite the bad weather, most of the campers had a great time and enjoyed the learning camp experience during the four days at Lake Tomahawk.

The result of the camp was very encouraging and positive. All of these young and energetic community activists now come back to their home town and started promoting the ideal of volunteerism, the idea of sharpening your skills to be a good leader, and to promote for the Youth Leadership Camp 2000. All of these would not be possible without the great contribution of our sponsors and underwriters. We would like to show our deep appreciation toward these corporations for having made this wonderful event a reality.

For pictures and more comments and stories about Len Duong'99 please visit Len Duong'99web page.

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Last modified: July 03, 1999