M-Camps

Project Director: Jaano Rässa
Project Associate: Jako Salla

In June 2003 Caritas launched a special pilot project in the field of crime prevention. The target group of M-Camps is boys between 10 and 18. All M-Camps are free of any charge for the participants. These are, in brief, 3-days military-like forest camps for up to 12 boys that are conducted by 3 adult instructors. 2 of them are from Caritas' staff and every time one volunteer comes from police, military or justice institutions. There are also students participating as volunteers.

All participants receive for usage military rucksacks, sleeping bags, mess tins etc. needful equipment and accessories. Everyone receives for oneself a t-shirt with a special logo. In forests they learn practical camping, are engaged with military sports and there are also visits made to army units as well as to border guard stations.

The grounding principle of our M-camps is: there is no spare time left. Everyone has at home lots of possibilities to sleep and hang around... but not with us.

During first months of conducting M-camps there have formed some more permanent and interested groups who have been allowed to participate for several times and with whom that kind of approach and pro-social work seems to be fruitful. Those boys are really interested in such, positively manly activities – and they want to prove themselves also at winter-time and in other harsh conditions.

Also, our target groups’ boys can visit prisons, go to cycling-trips and exercise climbing.

The project is supervised by a consultative Roundtable, consisting mainly of officers and officials from different public sector institutions.

The pilot project of M-camps has been supported by:
The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn
The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Tallinn
Tallinn City Government Commission on Crime Prevention
Royal Danish Embassy in Tallinn

Our main partners:
Estonian Border Guard
Estonian Defence Forces
Tallinn Police Prefecture
Ministry of Education and Research, Bureau of Schools