I am an exchange student who came here through 4H. I learned about 4H by some orientations for exchange program and 4H camp last month. We don’t have 4H in Japan, but I became a fan of 4H by learning about them.

Meaning of 4H

4H has the meaning of Head, Heart, Hand and Health. The reason is on their website as a pledge. It’s on the below. If you go to the 4H camp, you will read this in the morning or sometime.

4H pledge

I pledge my head to clearer thinking, My heart to greater loyalty, My hands to large service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and my world.

Generation for 4H

Youth and teens age 8 to 18 can participate 4H programs and Youth age 5 to 7 can join Cloverbud programs.  

The recent camp in KY

There was a camp for middle school students on March 16th to 18th. I joined the camp as a volunteer. We had some workshops to develop communication skills and leadership skills. Middle school students chose some workshops which they are interested in and they participated others with the team for the camp. The most interesting workshop for me was to make towers with spaghetti and just four marshmallows. We needed to communicate well and share our ideas for it, also we were able to use just four marshmallows, so we discussed the way to use them. It was so fun to create a tower by sharing our ideas. Teens, some high school students conducted all meetings and workshops. They have confidence and leadership which were created by their experience with 4H. We also had some free time to hang out with friends we made at the camp, and dance time for having fun.   

International programs

-4H Academic Year abroad program

For the program, participants live with a local family and attend high school. They have some partnerships with some exchange organizations. Since 1972, their exchanges have impacted nearly 63,000 youth and many families in 43 countries on 6 continents. Moreover, there are not only exchange programs for one year, but also they have the homestay programs for the summer. Below are some of the good points of exchange programs which are on the 4H website. All coordinators who talked at the zoom meeting for the exchange program were so good. If you are interested in exchange programs, you should go through 4H.

-Online camp

They have not only exchanged programs for homestay. 4H provided an online 4H camp for Japanese youth during summer vacation in 2020, a Covid year through zoom. I was busy and I couldn’t participate, but my brother and his friend joined it, and they talked about the camp like what they did for the camp. I heard they had settings like going to some states like Uta. Each states’ coordinator or youth explains their state and introduces them to make hot sandwiches, s’more and slime. They said coordinators and youth of 4H were so nice and they had a good experience at the zoom camp.

Conclusion 

If you want to develop your communication skills, leadership skills and international experience, you should join a 4H camp or exchange programs. I am pretty sure you will have a good experience and have fun during the programs.