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Camp grounded
By PENELOPE M. CARRINGTON/TIMES-DISPATCH
STAFF WRITER
Published: March 14, 2006
Retreats ease the passage as child becomes woman
Huddled shoulder to shoulder around an altar of their making, the handful of teen girls gathered their thoughts. Then one by one, they poured.
As the drops of water filled the vase, so did each girl's prayer for family, strength or one another fill the room. The weekly libation ritual created a collective of buoyant, interconnected spirits just as Korantema Okomofo said it would.
"It just speaks to humbling yourself and honoring yourself," said Okomfo, an Akan priestess who studied in the eastern region of West Africa. "When you do, you connect with the whole universe."
It's like this every Tuesday night when a classroom at the Hotchkiss Community Center is transformed into a sanctuary. Here, the 11-to17-year-olds teetering on the cusp of womanhood find guidance and support as they evolve amid an intentionally female community of their peers.
 "It's somewhere where I can express myself and talk about things I don't want to tell other people; things I can share with people who have the same problems as me," said Mokeisha Williams, 15, two weeks ago. "I feel more free."
Such is the Sisterhood of Camp Diva.
What began three years ago as a two-week summer retreat has expanded into five weeks plus a new once-a-week after-school program for girls, most of them African-American. The retreats at Hotchkiss Center on the city's North Side and the Powhatan Hill Community Center were launched last month and will continue through June.
All were inspired by Clover Smith's desire to nurture the promise in young girls after having lost her own daughter, said camp founder Angela Patton, a longtime family friend. Dive Mstadi Smith-Roane, who was being watched by a family member while her mother worked, found a gun at that other home and accidentally shot herself in the head in January 2004, Patton said. Diva died four hours later. She was 5.
"This gives her mother an opportunity to see her light shine through other girls," Patton said.
A bit of prevention
To Patton, the camp is an ounce of prevention on the precarious road to womanhood where one bad experience can lead to a life-altering detour. Patton, who has worked in many fields, said she has met women who have taken such turns and ended up in substance abuse, homelessness or domestic violence.
"Something happened to them early on that led to them having poor relations with men.somehow they didn't have self-love and others didn't ever have positive relations with their mothers or within their homes," said Patton, program manager at ART 180, a nonprofit organization that joins with other groups to help kids express themselves through art.
"I believe it does take a village to raise your children. I feel like my responsibility is to try and be one of those people in the village. I feel like I'm trying to do my part to give the girls some of the things they need."
That means "getting back to basics" during a time when two-parent homes are more of an old school reality and elders aren't sought after for their wisdom.
"As African-Americans, we know about being strong families, but sometimes I think the cycle is broken, " Patton said.
The camp's repair efforts include activities, speakers and field trips designed to teach the girls how to become independent critical thinkers.
"It was like a gift," said Alexis Imani Plush, 16, of her three years attending the Camp Diva Summer Retreats. She'll serve as a counselor-in-training this summer. "It gave me a sense of confidence."
Now, Plush said, she's less self-conscious about her hearing aid or needing a sign language interpreter. Her head stays high and she's more apt to let someone get close. Girls in the after-school program are also making strides, such as sitting together in the Kid's Café at the Hotchkiss Center. It's significant considering that many of the girls are from the same neighborhood or the same school but maybe didn't like each other before the program, said Sherita Johnson, a recreational instructor at the Hotchkiss Center.
"That's when it hit me that this would not happen if the Diva Camp had not started to instill that sisterhood feeling. That's part of the dream- having them realize that they are part of each other and these small things don't matter," Johnson said.
Defining projects
The after-school group's ongoing African waist-beading project is one example of a project that helped the girls define themselves. Worn inside one's under wear, the string of colorful beads celebrates the process of a girl becoming a woman. Even the colors have meaning, which several girls shared one Tuesday.
Miquiesha Daniel, 13, said she strung hers with orange and yellow beads to represent love and faith. The red, white and blue section was a tribute to the people who perished in the Sept. 11 terror attacks and those who survived.
Bertha "Pumpkin" Oxendine, 13 said she chose black "because sometimes you have dark parts in your life, but you're going to get over them and then it's going to be white. White is what clears everything up for me."
Adia Blackmon, founder of the area's Black Woman Press, said the process of finding that clarity "helps us understand who you are presenting to the world."
Mokeisha Williams made that plain when asked to pretend she was a word in the dictionary during her turn with the group's rotating journal.
"Black, African, a beautiful princess that is cute," she said, reading from her jotted, free-flowing notes. "I bring a smile to everyone. A friend.athletic, creative, artistic, one-of-a-kind and sometimes, me."
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