Topcamp has been creating outdoor learning camps for children that help them in their self growth. Our camps are a place for children to learn, celebrate, connect with themselves, each other and nature.

Topcamp's learning programs and camps for children are designed by Baljit. They are based on his philosophy and understanding of psychology and Spirituality.

Founder of Topcamp - Baljit works as a life coach,  helping individuals in their personal development. He works with corporate and schools to help them learn through outdoors; helping them connect and discover themselves.  He has been working with children right from his  college days, working as counselor and instructor with several organizations. Baljit loves being with Children and he is actively involved with children in his community, he regularly organizes sports activities, teaches yoga and spends time playing with children and listening to them.

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Some of my most beautiful spiritual experiences have come while being around children.

Baljit
 

Soccer Camp Saatal, Uttarakhand 15th to 20th May 2011 2nd to 8th June 2011		Basketball Camp Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand 12th to 18th June 2011		Summer Camp Namik Village, Uttarakhand May / June 2011

Our Philosophy
We  believe children learn and grow tremendously while participating in tours, whether they are adventure tours, wildlife trips, cultural excursions or simple leisure tours. When they are on their own, they spend much more time with each other and also depend upon each other more than usual. This creates lasting bonding between them.

Our outdoor learning programs with children are led by qualified  instructors, who have several years of experience of working with children. We deeply enjoy working with children. Our camps and other tours with children are guided by Baljit's understanding of children and their psychology.

Our trips are more then excursions, they are a breaking ground for a child’s emotional and spiritual growth.

Our trips are aimed at helping children to:

1. Develop emotional and social skills.

2. Develop confidence by overcoming challenges and learning new things.

3. Connect with their spiritual selves and restore their innocence, spontaneity and presence.

4. To understand themselves, their dreams, goals and desires

5. Strengthen their individuality and sense of self.

6. Develop healthy relationships and bonding with others.

7. Learn to love and be loved.

8. To express themselves and learn to celebrate life.

9. To experience joy and happiness.

More than anything else our camps are a place where children are given space to explore their individuality. They are allowed and encouraged to express themselves while we hold a space of unconditional love and gentle attention for them.

We conduct numerous activities in our camps but we neither encourage competition nor do we believe in exercising control on children. Instead we entrust them with much greater task of learning to take responsibility for themselves and their actions while they are away from parental control.

Adventure and travel is one of the best ways of connecting with one’s inner selves and that is what we help children to do. This helps them to learn to take decisions based on their inner guidance and true feelings. There is no failure in our activities, only learning. We try to eliminate or minimize fear of making mistakes as far as possible by not putting any expectations upon them. At the same time we teach them to stretch beyond their comfort zone, for no freedom or growth comes without inner strength and ability to discipline oneself. Pushing ourselves and striving for our goals develops character, we believe. Our trips provide them with several challenges to overcome and all this instills confidence in them.

Not to forget our trips are a place where children are expected to be children, we don’t stroke them for being too mature or being ahead of their age, It’s an opportunity –a rather rare one - for them to express themselves and behave like children do –spontaneous and innocent. Unfortunately our culture expects them to be adults to soon or at least admires them more for their niceties and in control behavior rather than their innocence.

This is a conditioning we all go through and early in our life we learn to be in control all the time, irrespective of how we are feeling. We are told again and again to behave ourselves and this is not in congruence with how we are feeling, this sort of conditioning teaches repression and disconnection from oneself instead of self awareness and expression of our true feelings and thoughts. We help children to remain spontaneous and remain childlike yet develop discernment and understanding. They can drop their guards and be uninhibited on our camps. They can be themselves, natural and fearless, with no one to impress and no exams to pass. They can scream, yell, laugh out aloud, dance, jump or simply enjoy the solitude.

On the whole children have a lot of fun on our trips.

Our camps

We have more than 15 different camps in Uttaranchal and Himachal where we conduct programs for school children Details of these camps can be found on our website.

Activities
There are numerous activities we conduct at our camps and retreats depending upon the location.

List of the activities that we organize:
1. Hiking, 2. Angling, 3. Mountain Biking, 4. Archery, 5. Singing, 6. Rope courses, 7. Tent Pitching, 8. Bird Watching, 9. Dancing, 10. Rock-climbing, 11. Rappelling, 12. River Crossing, 13. Role playing, 14. Yoga and mindfulness, 15. Active meditations, 16. Understanding Feelings and emotions, 17. Understanding relationships, 18. Expressing feelings and developing intimacy, 19. Day-dreaming, 20. Various sports, 21. Kite flying, 22. Village Visits, 23. Swimming, 24. Music & 25. Writing.

Our team

Topcamp together an outstanding team of professionals, each an expert in his own right. The team at Top Camp includes experts from varied fields – climbers, kayakers, seasoned anglers, ornithologists, bikers, wildlife experts, yoga practitioners. We have a team of mountaineers who are instructors at National Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi. They have several years of experience in climbing and mountaineering. They are the best in the country.

Gear and safety standards
We very well understand our responsibility while working with children, we use the best imported gear used for adventure activities and follow strict safety standards. Although no adventure activity or outdoor experience is completely risk free but we make sure that everything from our end is as tight and safe as it could be.

Yoga and increasing self awareness
Developing self-awareness is an integral part of our programs with children. We teach yoga in most of our trips, however it not about tough postures, we try to teach few basic postures to children in natural settings, which are fun and enjoyable. Our intention is introduce children to the essence of yoga. It’s a practice through which we teach children to get in touch with their body and feelings by being mindful. We try to help them to feel the pleasant sensations as the energy blocks are opened during stretching and yogic postures; this is a great way towards increasing self awareness and managing stress.

Grounding exercises. and connecting with nature is part of the teaching. This helps children rest their minds and relax.

Emotions and expression
On our trips children learn to identify their emotions and express them with awareness. Various activities are aimed at helping children in  expressing feelings through creative pursuit

They could simply sit under a tree, gaze at the river, sing a song, hike around or simply laze on a hammock. To not do anything and simply unwind is indeed more difficult.

To sum it up children experience a lot of joy and love on our trips and so do we.