By Nayaab Shaikh

MANY schools and community organisations have introduced summer camps aimed at engaging children, who are spending their vacations in Qatar, productively.
The Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) has been running its fourth summer camp at the DPS-MIS, featuring an extensive range of informative, innovative, educational and entertaining programmes.
Courses during the 38-day camp will cover a variety of subjects based on themes like entertainment, personality development and sports. Swimming will be part of the daily schedule. An awareness programme on health, safety and environment will also be conducted.
One major attraction of this year’s ICC summer camp is visits to banks, the post office, health centres and other places that will expose the children to some important aspects of life.
The annual summer camp organised by the Indian Club is another fun-filled, educational and entertaining place for children aged between five and fifteen. Dance, music, public speaking, aerobics, salad making, tailoring, mono acting and farm visits are some of the activities that fill the list of the slated events.
The International Academic Society is also conducting a two-month long camp for children aged three to fifteen. The activities scheduled for the course include painting, mental maths, puzzle solving, map reading, language proficiency and health and hygiene awareness.
Children will also be helped with their respective holiday homework received from schools.
Affirming that personality and leadership development skills play an important part in the growing years of children, the Skills Development Centre (SDC) has designed a personality development programme which is part of their summer workshop for children aged 8-12.
The personality development programme includes topics like leadership skills, creative drama, public speaking and coping with examination fear.
The Ideal Indian School, in co-operation with the Indian Islamic Association and Indian Friends Circle, is conducting a month-long Summer Islamic Orientation Course.
“The idea behind this course is to stress the importance of Islamic studies, especially the Holy Qur’an,” a spokesman said.
The course gives students a good opportunity to sharpen their Islamic knowledge by mingling with various students and well educated teachers.
The Weill Cornell Medical College is conducting a two-week summer programme offering numerous courses for children like activities to advance their mathematics, reading and writing skills, tackling issues in clinical practice and holding presentations and personal development workshops to introduce prospective students to college life.
Carnegie Mellon University Qatar and Georgetown University (Qatar), both Education City-based institutions, recently concluded their summer programmes.
With such a wide array of camps and workshops available, students may keep themselves busy during the summer, the principal of a private school said. “The camps also leave lasting memories in children and some of the participants develop life-long friendships at such places.”