(Above) Students on a hiking trail through the Swiss Alps, organised by Les Elfes; (below) fun at the camping site

This is every kid’s dream come true. Imagine getting your fill of skiing, rappelling, rock-climbing, bridge-swinging and other such adventures, in Switzerland, no less, and all without a parent in sight.

Les Elfes, an organisation headquartered in Switzerland, has been organising camps for children for the past 20 years, for 12 of which they have been present in India. In Calcutta, the fun started last year. Its pre-planned packages take groups of children to Switzerland, with a gamut of activities lined up for them, under the careful supervision of trained professionals.

“We started with two programmes (summer and winter camps) in one location (Verbier, in the Swiss Alps),” explained Phillipe Stettler, who runs Les Elfes along with wife Nicole. “Now we have six fixed locations and eight programmes for individual students and 40 for school groups.”

The programmes for India are designed around April and May. For Calcutta it is mid-May to end-May. “We take 100 students per session,” explained Bibi Rani Nangia, director of the India operation at a recent event in Calcutta. Most of the interest in India comes from children between the ages of 10 and 14. The fee is 3,400 Swiss francs plus airfare.

“Our idea is that children should have learnt a sport through the camps,” said Nangia. Les Elfes focuses on “multi-sports” like skiing, rappelling, rock-climbing, bridge-swinging (“a lot like bungee jumping”), with guidance from trained instructors. Then there is soccer with AC Milan and surfing at Byron Bay, Australia. “The adult-child ratio in the camps is 1:5,” added Nangia.

Anupama Sharma, wife of DIG (Headquarters) Anuj Sharma, loves kids and travelling, twin passions that saw her join Les Elfes last year. The camp, that was held from May 16 to 30, 2008, had 19 children from the city. “We used to ski in the morning. After lunch the kids used to relax. In the evening was teatime,” revealed Anupama, mother of two.

Besides a whole lot of adventure sports, the gang also went sightseeing. Family time was between 4pm and 7pm when the kids shared the day’s happenings with their parents over the phone.

And though it is time for a fresh session of programmes to get underway, the bunch that travelled from Calcutta last year is still very excited about their experiences. “Bridge-swinging was the coolest. We had so much fun because our parents were not around. Small things like eight of us sharing one room was very cool,” smiled Harshita Sharma, 16, and her friends from camp.

Parents, too, seemed happy. “When we go out with kids, this is not the kind of entertainment we usually opt for,” said Savita Sharma, Harshita’s mother, whose younger daughter Simran too was a part of the Les Elfes contingent last year.

“What I wanted to implement through these camps is self-sufficiency. Through these, they can make friends and network,” said Stettler. To ensure diversity, the student mix is balanced. “Now, we have a policy that we won’t take more than 10 per cent of students from one particular country, except for India where no fighting takes place!”

The programmes are of various kinds. Individual students stay longer (two weeks in spring and three weeks in summer) while schools students stay for one week.

Saionee Chakraborty