Camp helps disabled youngsters develop skills

By Sara Lin
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ann Yoshida, of Mililani, saddles up at Kualoa Ranch. Yoshida is part of the Trading Places program in which participants with disabilities trade visits between Alaska and Hawai'i. The program helps build self-confidence and skills for the workplace. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser Trading Places Brings together 16- to 26-year-olds from Alaska and Hawai'i for two weeks of cultural exchange and recreation. The program encourages disabled people to pursue careers and include recreation in their lives. Trading Places also promotes public awareness about disabled people in the Islands. A collaborative project between the Sea of Dreams Foundation, Challenge Alaska and the Hawaii Centers for Independent Living, made possible by a three-year federal grant that decreases every year. To become a program sponsor, phone the Hawaii Centers for Independent Living at 522-5400.

With their sack lunches, fishing poles and water bottles in hand, these kids from the Trading Places camp — an Alaska-Hawai'i exchange program — are having the full Hawai'i vacation experience, including one or two bad cases of sunburn. Zane and two others roll across the sand in wheelchairs, but you'd have to look closely to realize many of these young people have disabilities. In many cases, looking doesn't tell you anything.

That's one of the messages the organizers of Trading Places hope to get across — disabilities don't have to prevent young people from living normal lives.

"We're helping to break down an attitude barrier, especially about how other people look at them. Everybody talks about ethnic diversity, and that's great, but there's more," said Melissa Applegate, a camp counselor for the program who also works as a recreation therapist at the Rehab Hospital of the Pacific.

Ten young people with disabilities ages 16 to 26 arrived June 20 from Alaska and are here for a two-week cultural exchange. Trading Places, or Huli Aku Huli Mai, is a federally financed program that builds self-confidence and reinforces skills that will help participants find jobs and live on their own.

In March, 10 Hawai'i youths traveled to Anchorage for two weeks of skiing, dog-sledding, and snowmobiling. The two groups reunited this week for the second half of the program. The program represents the collaborative effort of three nonprofit organizations — Challenge Alaska, the Sea of Dreams Foundation and the Hawai'i Centers for Independent Living. All encourage people with disabilities to pursue careers and include recreation in their lives.

The camp's participants are youth with a wide variety of disabilities, ranging from deafness and physical disabilities to developmental and learning disorders.

For 21-year-old Zane of Kaimuki, Trading Places marks the first time she has been around people with cognitive disabilities. A car accident during her senior year of high school left Zane paralyzed from the chest down.

"It's fun to see and learn about the different disabilities. It really opens my mind to different types of people," Zane said. She is taking classes at Kapi'olani Community College and plans to get a degree in family resources from the University of Hawai'i. Zane wants to become a counselor. "This is good training," she added.

Risk and adventure

In many respects, Trading Places is like other youth retreats. It takes a group of youngsters out of a familiar environment and asks them to challenge themselves.

"There's risk and adventure in driving a dog sled or a snowmobile. When you've done something like that, you feel like you can do anything," said Jennifer Ertel, director of recreational therapy at Challenge Alaska. "The kids are building self-esteem. They're being empowered and realizing they have skills. They're realizing that with these skills, they have choices."

Whereas the average Hawai'i tourist visits Waikiki beach and Ala Moana Center, the camp organizers have booked every major Hawaiian attraction for the camp except skydiving. In addition to visiting Kualoa Ranch and the Polynesian Cultural Center, the group will go fishing, snorkeling, canoeing, hiking, horseback riding, sailing, and of course, surfing. Yesterday they surfed at Tongg's with a fleet of 10 instructors towing everyone who could swim out for a wave. Their last stop will be a swap meet on Wednesday.

Using recreation as therapy to help people with disabilities develop skills to become more independent, the Challenge Alaska team has camp participants focusing on achieving goals and developing skills that a person without a disability might take for granted.

"When you're doing something fun, you don't realize you're building stamina or working on things like mobility or concentration," Ertel said.

For 20-year-old Christopher Jamison, the plane ride from Anchorage was the most difficult part of the journey. Jamison suffers from a mental disorder and said he can worry himself into depression about almost anything. Being part of a group at camp has helped him worry less about himself and think more about others.

A natural in the kitchen, Jamison wants to become a chef, and plans to attend culinary classes at the University of Alaska.

"I like to help out and do the prep work," he said. At camp in Alaska, he peeled two pounds of prawns and watched the cook prepare caribou. "My favorite is macaroni and cheese. But not that box stuff — the homemade kind."

Participants also are learning how to socialize, a skill that applies directly to the workplace. Beth Edmands, executive director of Challenge Alaska, notices that most people lose their jobs not because they can't do the work, but because they don't know how to interact with their peers.

Sponsors critical

Trading Places is paid for by a three-year federal grant that decreases $25,000 each year, making private support critical to the program.

As it is, there will not be enough money in successive years to keep running the program with all of the same activities and resources. Sea of Dreams could do a lot more, said Kevin Dierks, who directs Ocean of Potentiality, a subsidiary of the Sea of Dreams Foundation. But a lot of the money is eaten up by support costs.

"If we want to keep doing this we need support," said Dierks. "We hope sponsors see there is a lot to get out of this." This year, big contributions came from Hawaiian/Alaskan Vacations, which donated 20 round-trip tickets, and Young Brothers, which shipped a wheelchair-accessible van from Hilo and back for free.

"Our system really encourages someone with a disability not to work and be dependent on the system," said Applegate. She looks over at two of the Alaskans perched on the waters edge, wading in up to their knees. "Look at these kids, they're young and capable of doing so many things."