5 days ago
‘Overcame all my fears': Halifax's Camp Courage returns for another successful year
A group of young women in Nova Scotia tried out careers as first responders in Halifax over the weekend.
Many students in the Maritimes are beginning their break from school with summer camp, and one recent camp in Halifax required its participants to have a lot of courage.
Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency Captain Andrea Speranza founded Camp Courage in 2006 with the goal of introducing teenage girls to careers as first responders.
Speranza says she felt that there was low representation of women in more non-traditional professions.
'And I felt that if they actually got to physically do the tasks that they would love it as much as I do, and it's true because we have a 36 per cent success rate of graduates moving on,' she says.
Those who participated in this year's camp had a week full of police, paramedic and Coast Guard training before fire training days on Friday and Saturday.
Camp Courage
A teenage girl takes part in Camp Courage in Halifax. (Carl Pomeroy/CTV Atlantic)
'There's going to do zipline, repel, get a ride in a truck,' Speranza said.
'They are going to rescue little (pretend) babies in a smokehouse, they are going to put hazardous materials suits on, they are going to learn how to use a hydrant and they are going to cut a roof off a car and make it into a convertible.'
Maggie Smith was among those who took part.
'There's so much, there's EHS, there's fire, there's police, so there's all these options, so Camp Courage is great because it gave me everything that I could possibly want to look into,' she said.
'I was just really interested in first responding at first and then the camp, seeing all the options, like Coast Guard, fire lined up, it was so exciting.'
Coast Guard day especially stood out to participant Chidere Achunike.
'The second day was the Coast Guard day. It was raining so we all had to wear our ponchos, we got to do so many things that day and I actually got to see an actual emergency because we had to pull someone out from the water, save a person,' she said.
'Everyone was so supportive, so kind, it was like I overcame all my fears. We did a lot of drills and it was just so inspiring to see everyone, how they were just right there for you,' added fellow student Macaileigh Fohshow.
Young women or gender diverse youth aged 15 to 19 are encouraged to apply to upcoming events directly on the Camp Courage website.
'Apply for this lifechanging experience and I assure you, you will not be disappointed,' said Speranza.
Twenty five youth graduated from this year's event.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Carl Pomeroy.
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