STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.
(Supplied: Kiki Rozema)
By Abby Zieverink
Camp Tamarack

Girls empowerment, mentorship camp set to build confidence

Sep 11, 2021 | 7:00 AM

A camp geared towards empowering and building confidence in girls is kicking off at Camp Tamarack later this month.

The 2nd annual three-day empowerment/mentorship camp for girls is taking place from September 24-26.

As a former junior high teacher in Grande Prairie, Smoothies Tank Tops Founder and CEO Kiki Rozema says she wanted to create a camp for girls two years ago to help teach girls the skills to persevere through difficult situations among that age group.

“I was really drawn, by sort of the struggles girls go through in particular, so we created a camp two years ago… and it’s for girls 10 to 14 and mentors, who are 15 to 18,” she adds.

Over the course of the three days, Rozema says the group of 23 girls will participate in various activities, including a guest speaker, who will talk about topics such as bullying.

She says at the camp they will help teach the girls how to navigate through difficult situations with friendships and bullying.

“With those discussions, we talk about what happens if my friend is mad at me, what do I do? How do I feel? What do I do if I’m bullied, or if someone else is bullied?,” said Rozema.

“Although times have changed, I’m hoping to bring my experience and the guest speaker that we have coming, that can bring some value too, I’m going to get through this hard time, and here are the tools I’m going to use to get through this.”

Rozema says they teach girls the importance of having a positive body image of themselves, as well as others.

“We talk about the dangers of comparing our bodies to somebody else, and we talk about taking care of our bodies and why it’s so important.”

An addition to the camp this year is the Smoothies Olympics, which Rozema says she is very excited about.

“The Smoothies Olympics is about team building, and the girls will be in various groups because we have campers from 10 to 14, we kind of mix up the groups so that kids have an opportunity to work with kids that are not exactly the same age.”

Rozema says her Golden Retriever, who is a registered therapy dog, will also camp alongside the girls, as they participate in many other activities over the weekend to further help empower and grow their confidence.

“There’s so much going on and such diversity that I feel everyone would benefit from going.”

Rozema suggests the number of local sponsors she had this year to help support the girl’s empowerment camp was both surreal and heartwarming.

“We had just phenomenal people stand up and go ‘yeah, you know what? This is important thing’… So, I’m really happy to be a part of the community for this reason.”

Registration for next year’s camp opens at noon on Monday, September 27. Rozema says, last year, the camp sold out four days after the registration opened.

by Abby Zieverink