CHICKS Diary 1: Arriving, Archery and Canoeing
On holiday with the naughty kids
Okay, that’s not really fair. These were sixteen children aged from 8 to 11 who, for one reason or another, would not be going on another holiday this year. They might come from a poverty-stricken background, their parents might be addicted to drugs, or they might have suffered some form of abuse. Usually they’ve been excluded from school at least once. The one thing they all had in common was that they deserved a break.
I’d first heard of CHICKS, or Country Holidays for Inner City Kids, at Innocent Drinks’ Fruitstock Festival in 2003. I’d felt for some time that I wanted to do something for charity other than donate money. Sure, I’d had a taste of it with the Walk for Skin, but it was easy; it didn’t test me. This, I knew, wouldn’t be a walk in the park.
I’d arrived to volunteer on Thursday with no expectations at all for the week ahead and was thrown right into the deep end, helping the children unpack into their recently refurbished rooms. We had a brief five-minute “rules” chat from Vicky and Nate, the CHICKS Supervisors, and then it was off out to the Play Barn for table-tennis, foosball, pool, trampolines and air hockey. I was soon exhausted, but that wasn’t so bad because the kids sit down for their evening meal ridiculously early. Throughout the week with no exposure to media or the internet it was easy to lose track of the time and day. Nevertheless I endeavoured to keep a diary.
Friday – Archery and Canoeing
I had reservations about handing these children weapons, but I’d already gained a degree of blind faith in the supervisors, both of whom had been Volunteers themselves. The way the CHICKS staff dealt with the kids isn’t like that of any teacher I’d seen. The time and patience they show to the kids when they did misbehave and the way they subsequently dealt with them is designed to show them that not every adult they encounter is going to shout, scream or hit them. Or indeed ignore them.
It would have been difficult to ignore Charlie anyway. From the East End of London he exuded the image of a 10-year-old Pete Doherty and had a tendency to do a kind of swaggering dance everywhere he walked. All he needed was a trilby.
He was in a canoe with a fellow ADHD sufferer. I say in a canoe, but they spent the majority of the time in the water. The inability of the duo to remain in their boat and their subsequent shock each time their vessel capsized was captivating.
Charlie’s crewmate was Adam and we were quick to notice and attempt to curb his propensity to hump furniture. You could always tell when he was attempting to copulate with a table because he’d start screaming “Don’t look at me!” For pudding in the evening we had apple pie in custard. It was the second day running we’d had a dessert in custard, and the second day running that Adam loudly compared custard to sperm.
After milk and cookies and telling the group our favourite part of the day it was bedtime. Putting the boys to bed, we uncovered a small air freshener on Adam’s pillow from the previous night. Mildly incredulous, this was quickly confiscated to plaintive cries of “Please can I sniff it in the morning? PLEASE I NEED IT!”
The Volunteer’s debrief with the Supervisors which followed was an ideal opportunity to remind us that neither mild substance abuse nor overtly sexual behaviour from the kids was tolerated at CHICKS. They operate on a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy. Nate informed us that Adam would receive his first warning in the morning.