Over the years I have heard many stories about how much joy and peace people received from their experience of communion with nature. I, myself, have had joyful experiences with Mother Nature at scout camp during my early teens, but not until now do I realize her unconditional offering of peace and love for all of her children.

This peace and love that mother earth has for us is a living reality that we can bathe our entire being in. Time and time again, I see the difference in the smiles on the faces of young Asians and in the sound of their laughter during and after our summer weekend camping trips. We can deeply touch the hearts of young Asians when we provide a caring and supportive environment at camping retreats. This is the most efficient and effective way of reaching and offering our youths something meaningful.

We had overwhelming success according to the feed back we received from our participants. Almost every youth who went on ACAS' youth camping retreat within the last two years has shown great interest in going camping again. At the "closing circle" of each camping trip, where we offer our feelings and thoughts about the retreat, many youths shared that they let go of a lot of stress and worries. They thought it was a refreshing experience and found it easy to connect and make new friends. Camping gave us a good opportunity to explore topics that we rarely talk about because there were no distractions from circumstances of the city life. Topics such as purpose and meaning in life as well as relationships and family were passionately discussed by our Asian teens.

The energy and enthusiasm at our other workshop events and other organizations' workshop gatherings in Toronto were quite different from that of our experience at camp. First, young people do not have much interest in attending a workshop or pot luck at some office or someone else's house that they are not familiar with. Second, the indoor and inner-city environment create a restless and low energy setting that make the youths bored. Many entertained distracting thoughts of what they wanted to be doing next after their escape plan from the forgettable three hours workshop on relationships and healthy sexuality succeed. Usually it's "I have to go to my grandfather house" or "I have to help mommy with the grocery". Others who stuck around to the end of the workshop found themselves tired and disinterested.

Most of the new trends in AIDS work these days has been around holistic and behavioral change approaches. Much feedback from colleagues and community partners have suggested that we are on the right direction in fighting the spread of HIV by uplifting and promoting integral healthy life style among young Asians. Camping and outdoor retreats serve as a valuable tool to achieve our goals. This is not a new discovery by any means. I am just confirming the ancient wisdom that there is a healing and uplifting presence in nature. When we utilize the presence of Mother Nature in her pure form and add our human love and concern, magical things can happen. The proof here is in the putting. You have to go and taste it yourself.

Preventing HIV/AIDS is not merely sharing knowledge about how to reduce the chance of contracting the virus and handing out condoms. It is the transformation of destructive emotional behavior, the refocusing of mental clarity and the discovery of a meaningful and aspiring life style for our young people. This, after all, was the path showed to us by our ancient eastern wisdom for a life of happiness, even before the HIV virus introduced itself. Maybe this will force us to look harder and be wiser on our journey towards love and happiness.

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