G.O.D. Conducts Four Different Cultural Summer Camps Across Houston

Five Elements camp field trip to Brazos Bend.

Five Elements camp field trip to Brazos Bend.

MANVEL: This summer, the Houston chapter of Global Organization for Divinity (G.O.D.) USA conducted four different “Gopa Kuteeram” summer camps for various age groups, three of them at Houston Namadwaar Prayer House in the Pearland/Manvel area, and a fourth one in Cypress.

A number of kids and youth took part in these camps that aimed to foster an appreciation of Indian culture, spirituality, and its scientific nature, combined with an effort to inspire the participants to think higher in life and open up to new, interesting concepts.

The Li’l Gopas Camps at Pearland and Cypress were tailored for children aged 5 to 10 years and included many interesting activities including music and dance, stories, poetry writing, photography, jewelry-making, art & crafts, yoga, slokas, culinary arts and a field trip to the Asia Society Texas Center gallery.

The middle and junior high school youth camp at Namadwaar was themed around the concept of the Five Elements. Participants delved into the nature of the elements, their creation, their relationship to us and more. Another interesting session was one on “Who Has Seen God?” The children were enthusiastic and curious, as they raised some very relevant and interesting questions during both these sessions. At the end of the camp, a telecon Q & A session for the participants was arranged with Sri Ramanujam ji, disciple of HH Maharanyam Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji, from India. Apart from these sessions, the participants of this camp also had fun during many themed workshops such as digital storytelling where they created a video about each of the five elements, canvas painting, culinary arts, a song and skit performance, yoga and a field trip to Brazos Bend State Park and George Observatory.

The final camp conducted at Namadwaar was a unique one. It was a family summer program called “Samskruti” for families with children in middle and high school. Spread over four Sundays, this program aimed at helping participants learn valuable concepts and life skills from the Ramayana, which also opened their eyes to the depth and glory of the epic. The sessions were sprinkled with many fun activities geared towards reinforcing the learning from the presentations.

The Sanskrit term ‘Gopa Kuteeram’ refers to the play-house of the Lord and His playmates from ancient Indian epics. G.O.D. conducts Gopa Kuteeram camps as well as year-round children’s programs in several cities in the USA including Atlanta, Boston, Bay area California, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Michigan, Milwaukee, New York, Richmond and Seattle; and also in many countries around the world including Australia, India, Middle-East, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and others.

In Houston, apart from creative spring and summer camps, weekly Gopa Kuteeram sessions are held at Houston Namadwaar from September through April, every Saturday morning.

For further information about Gopa Kuteeram camps and programs in Houston, call 832-515-1251 or email houston.god@godivinity.org.