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Friday, January 30, 1998

Unicamp strives to get their name out

RECRUITING: Counselors seek to raise visibility, increase involvement

By Rachel Munoz

Daily Bruin Staff

In a large university like UCLA, not everyone is going to know your name, but Unicamp would like to change that. For this very reason, Unicamp has dedicated an entire week to one thing: getting their name out.

Today concludes five days filled with carnivals, tents, and tables set up throughout campus, allowing UCLA students to inform themselves of Unicamp.

As UCLA's official charity organization, Unicamp has operated for 64 years. Their program offers an annual summer camp, put on by UCLA students who serve as counselors for socio-economically challenged children.

"The point of this week is to get our name out on campus," said Brian "Treeboy" Short, a head Unicamp counselor. "And to increase involvement with other campus groups."

Support from other campus groups is going to be vital to Unicamp now that the Mardi Gras event, Unicamp's main fund-raiser at one time, no longer exists.

"We don't get that much support right now from other UCLA groups," said Kristina "Skittles" Caberto, a Unicamp counselor. "If we have name recognition then we should have an increase in funding capabilities."

In the process of awareness for their organization, Unicamp aims at becoming involved with other UCLA student groups.

Lately Unicamp members have been dropping off applications for students involved with the African Student Union and the Latin American Student Alliance in order to recruit more counselors from Latino and African American backgrounds.

Caberto explains that most of the children who attend Unicamp's summer programs are Latino or African American, while most of the Unicamp counselors are Asian or Caucasian. She admits that this is a good experience for both the UCLA students and the children, but it would be nice for kids to have role models of their same ethnicity.

"We want them to look up and see someone of their color in college," she said.

Unicamp is also looking into working with other charities. Caberto feels that if Unicamp lets other charities know about their services, then in turn those charities can pass along the information to the children they encounter.

Program Director Luis "Buster" Rojas enforces the idea that Unicamp would like to form a dialogue with other UCLA groups.

"We gain insight (into other groups) if people know about us," Rojas said. "That is our main focus. We need to have people come out and support Unicamp."

Even with such a long history, Unicamp must continually raise campus support for the organization to keep people involved and to recruit counselors.

"Every year we have to start over," said John "Sasquatch" Martinez, the camp director. "(Having a Unicamp Week) is the only way to get the word out."

Martinez compared the system to a pyramid that is always growing. "The leaders are now in place," he said. Next will come recruitment and during the spring, fund-raising will occur.

Rojas further believes that if Unicamp encourages other organizations on campus to get excited then people will stay excited about Unicamp throughout the year.

This could eliminate the "starting over" period Martinez describes.

"Overall we want to show a lot of excitement and enthusiasm," Short said. "And meet a lot of people."

GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin

Peter Duong and Christina Schneider recruit students for Unicamp in front of Perloff Hall.

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