Fifteen local youth traded their own beds and technology for cabins and the great outdoors for a week to participate in the first Selma Police Youth Leadership Camp.

For the past five days, youth ages 12-15 camped out with Selma police officers and HOPE Academy staff at Camp Tukabatchee in Prattville.

“We wanted to develop a program to tie the police with other community agencies and one of the things we wanted to do was a leadership camp for the youth,” said Selma Police Chief William Riley III. “A camp that will allow them to work together, solve problems, deal with conflict resolutions, working with people that they’ve never worked with before and also something physical. Actually get out there in nature.”

And that is exactly what they did.

The participants camped out in cabins for five days and four nights while learning to work together and overcome various tasks and obstacles.

“Talking with [participating officers], they said the kids did very well,” Riley said. “They had some drills they said they had some complications with, and those were the drills of working together.”

But even though the kids struggled with tasks at times, they eventually figured out a way to work as a team and get through the obstacle, even if it did take a while.

One officer, Lt. Natasha Fowkles, was there during the activities and said it was definitely an experience she will remember forever.

“The challenging part was the coping, learning to come together as a team. That was the most challenging part of the camp,” Fowkles said. “They didn’t want to come together as a team. Everybody wanted to be single and do it their own way, instead of coming together as a team. But in the end, they came together as a team and completed the tasks.”

One of the tasks included working together to build a bridge to get over a “swamp.” They used 2X4 pieces of wood to build the bridge by balancing them on stumps. All of the kids had to balance on the 2X4’s and make it to the end without falling off. If any one person lost their balance and fell off of the boards, everyone had to start over.

“That task lasted for about an hour until they finally come up with the idea ‘OK this is how were going to do it,’” Fowkles said.

Another task had them climbing a ladder with a partner. The partners had to help each other up each step of the ladder, which was spaced out accordingly, before they walked across a beam to rappel back down to the ground.

“That was a challenge to see them helping one another get up that ladder,” Fowkles said. “That was a hard task.”

One participant, 13-year-old Jermia Marshall, said that was her favorite task, even though it was the most challenging one.

“The most challenging part was the cope because you had to have lots and lots of strength and then you had to be very corporative with your partner,” Marshall said. “I learned to never give up and always be very corporative. I am very proud of myself [for finishing] because of how hard it was. I was shocked that I finished it.”

A ceremony was held Friday afternoon at the police departments training building to honor all 15 that finished the program and rewarded them with certificates of completion.

Overall, Riley said he was very pleased with the camp and he definitely plans to make it a yearly event that children can participate in.

“The goal is to interact with our youth here in the city and county [and] let them know that the police are not their enemy, but we’re their friends, and we can have a good relationship and at the same time interact with other kids,” Riley said.

“Our goal is to continue to do this every year for the kids.”