Brøgger

Name: Nils Brøgger Jakobsen

Age: 27½

Participated in MS Leadership Seminar: 2004

What work camp experience do you have?
Oh, let me see.... way back when I was still young, between 2nd and 3rd year in highschool... that must have been in... let me see, 1999, I participated in a work camp in Brighton, England. This work camp was about building an ecological garden for some local hippies, but most of the time was spent on digging a pond by which they could sit and meditate. It was however great fun!
I was a work camp leader for the first time during summer 2004 after having participated in the MS Leadership Seminar the same year. After that I have been a work camp leader in two more camps in Denmark. All the camps have been a great succes. Especially my last camp during summer 2006, called “The Search for the Danish Mentality”, was an unforgetable experience. The idea was to invite 13 young people from all over the world to come to Denmark to search for the Danish mentality. The method for this was to meet with Danish people in their everyday life. The participants were hitchhiking all the way around Denmark and stayed at local families who welcomed us.

How did you experience being a work camp leader?
It was a positive experience meeting young people from very different countries and it was a great feeling that the project was appreciated by the local people. The task for the work camp was to build up a play ground in a kindergarten in Silkeborg, Denmark.

What did you gain from being a work camp leader?
The work camp “The Search for the Danish Mentality” gave a lot of media attention in the Danish media and it was a very big task to coordinate all the participants and keeping track of where they were going around Denmark. We were in national television 5 times and more than 40 articles were written about the camp in various newspapers. I gained a lot of organizational skills and planning skills. It was very important that the participants were able to act independendly. To be able to this they needed to have a strong sense of ownership of the project.

Which challenges did you face being a work camp leader?
It was hard at times, but the positive experiences overshadowed the hard work. The camp also gave me an opportunity to look at my own country and the Danish people through the eyes of the participants.

Do you have any advice for future work camp leaders?
You can lead a workcamp already established, but you can also build one up yourself or in cooperation with other people. Get into the web of youth training projects in Europe (www.salto-youth.net). Don’t be afraid to be a work camp leader, you can do it!!

From which country was the most weird participant at you work camp?
My favourite participant was the purely french speaking young guy who came to the work camp without knowing any English at all and had written his application and motivation for participating in the camp by the use of Babelfish. The only reason for going on the work camp was to meet Danish girls, but unfortunately he twisted his ankle on the 2nd day of the camp – it did not bring along any sympathy love affair.

The unique skill of Nils being a leader:
Attracting media attention with his charm and smile!