SOW's Family Groups
What Is SOW's Family Group?
The Wilderness Family Group combines and deepens social education and family education, and uses an easy-to-teach approach to bring together children of different ages to implement age-mixed and long-term nature education, to develop an attitude of respect for life, care for nature, simplicity of life, and gratitude for blessings, and to create a rare opportunity for co-learning in the memories of the children’s growth. The Wilderness Family Group is a group similar to a scout troop that uses group activities and parent participation to learn from each other, listen to each other, and express opinions. Parents do not just let their children participate in this program, but also let their children be accompanied by their parents from an early age.
The Origin of The SOW's Family Group
Founding Leader of SOW’s Family Group
The origin of the Wilderness Family Corps is closely related to the Wilderness Preservation Society’s emphasis on parent-child education. In the early days of the Association, due to limited resources, it could only organize a few camps per year, with activities focusing on wilderness survival skills. Although such short-term activities can allow urban children to be baptized in nature and train their will and physical fitness, their impact is still limited if they are to truly change their thinking, attitude and behavior towards nature, and they cannot be followed and accompanied on a long-term basis. Therefore, the Association has been thinking about how to create a long-term and sustainable children’s accompaniment organization.
At the end of 2000, the former Honorary Chairman of the Board of Directors, Lee-Wei-Wen, suggested that it would be possible to create a permanent children’s group, so that the children could accumulate their own experiences and feelings through long-term observation and realization of nature. Therefore, the idea started with a promise, and Lam-Yiu-Kwok, a former Scoutmaster with rich experience in organizing and training, was appointed as the Convenor to start planning for the establishment of the Family Group. After weekly preparatory meetings, discussions and adjustments, as well as recruiting members and interviewing parents, the Parent-Child Troupe was finally established on March 10, 2001, at the Dachun Villa, Laoquanli, Muzha District, Taipei City, by Lin-Yao-kuo (natural name: Blue Magpie of the Wilderness), the founding president of the Troupe, who recruited children in grades 3-5 from elementary schools in Taipei City, as members of the Troupe, and at the same time set up a Wilderness Parenting Committee to promote the development of parenting education. At the same time, the Wilderness Parenting Education Committee was established to promote the development of Wilderness Parenting Education. After 12 years of hard work, the Wilderness Family Group has gradually developed and set up different stages of parent-child groups, and eventually constructed a 12-year consistent and complete Wilderness Parent-Child Education System.
SOW's Family Group Structure
The Family Group is a sound structure of four groups and one club. In addition to the Family Group which is formed by parents, the children’s group is divided into four sub-groups (stages) according to different ages in a three-year unit, namely, the Little Ant Group, the Dazzling Bee Group, the Prancing Deer Group, and the Soaring Eagle Group, each of which has its own autonomy and age-appropriate activity concepts and contents.
▲SOW’s family group structure
小蟻團Little Ant Group
炫蜂團Dazzling Bee Group
奔鹿團Prancing Deer Group
翔鷹團Soaring Eagle Group
育成會Nurturing and Growing Inclusion Group
Little Ant Group
Little Ant Troupe is the first phase of the Wilderness Family Troupe, targeting kindergarten to primary two children. The main objective of the program is to fully utilize the personality traits of young children, provide activities that are suitable for the physical and mental growth of children of such ages, and to create an environment where they can get close to, explore, and love nature outside of their families and schools. Through the joyful games, children can experience harmonious interpersonal relationship and share the fun of group life, and cultivate the learning attitude of being courageous to try. The program focuses on the development of children’s adaptability and social skills. In order to learn good social skills, it is important to ensure that children are able to interact with others and learn the ability to take care of themselves in a simple manner.
Dazzling Bee Group
The Dazzling Bee Troupe is the second phase of the program, and is designed for children in the third through fifth grades of elementary school. The main purpose of the program is to build up a comprehensive concept of nature and ecology through the “group” format, to cultivate an interest in getting close to nature, to stimulate the motivation to explore nature, and to learn mutual respect and appreciation through human-to-human and human-to-nature interactions. The program focuses on stimulating curiosity, training children to utilize cross-disciplinary knowledge, exploring interests, and learning about themselves. Children are given the freedom they deserve, allowing them the time and space to play, get close to nature, climb trees, fall down, etc., rather than being forced to learn skills and accumulate knowledge from a young age.
Prancing Deer Group
The third phase of the program is called “Deer Troupe”, which targets young people from Primary 6 to Secondary 2 age group. The main objective of the program is to encourage the youths to utilize the foundation they have built up in the Dazzling Bee Troupe to develop their own personal interests, to conduct in-depth exploration of different ecological habitats, to investigate, to discuss and to share, and to present their observations as a team. The focus of the program shifts to teamwork and active knowledge exploration. Children will develop an active, curious spirit and a love of learning. They will be able to identify problems and develop problem-solving skills, and in the process gain a high level of confidence and irreplaceable happiness.
Soaring Eagle Group
The fourth stage is the “Soaring Eagle Troupe”, which is recruited from junior to senior high school age group. The Parent-Child Group expects that the members of this stage have accumulated rich experience and knowledge; they have enough courage and spirit to face all kinds of possible dilemmas; they have the ability to make immediate judgments and responses, and they can independently plan and conduct more in-depth and continuous nature observation, exploration and environmental protection at fixed locations. We will support, discuss and share with each other as a group, publish the results of our observations, and at the same time feed back our experiences to other groups, so that we can become their learning targets and set a good example for them. Therefore, the focus of the activities at this stage is to help young people to develop basic social skills, to be good at cooperation, to be able to adapt to the fast-changing world, and to be able to think independently as well as cooperating with others. The Family Group aims to guide them to listen to their own voices, to find their own lives, and at the same time, to be able to care and take action for the betterment of our environment.
Nurturing And Growing Inclusion Group
The word “nurture” means to nurture, feed and cultivate, while the word “grow” means to grow and develop. Therefore, “Nurture Club” is a back-up organization that actively helps the Wilderness Family Groups to grow through practical actions. Its members include all parents of Wilderness Family Groups and non-parent volunteers in the steering group.
Special Events in SOW's Family Group
The Wilderness Family Group has been organizing parent-child camping activities for a long time Through the national family group camping activities, the group exchanges experience in environmental education and shares experience in environmental protection. It also enhances the emotional communication among all members of the group and creates a warm and friendly team atmosphere, which builds harmonious interpersonal relationships and creates a good environment for learning together. Every time we organize a program with various promotional themes, children will learn more about nature and the importance of environmental protection. This year, in conjunction with Wilderness’ 30th Anniversary celebration, we organized a family group green living achievement exchange camping trip in three campgrounds throughout Taiwan: Longmen Campground, Puxin Farm, and Jomase Farm, with the theme of “Green Recycling and Sustainable Living” to help children learn more about green recycling and sustainable living. We shared the results and experiences of each group in promoting the annual theme of low-carbon green living, and conducted cross-group exchanges, unplugged night market gate-crashing activities, and campsite visits to introduce each other to the campsite.
▲SOW Parent-Child Group Central Region 8th National Campout