Category Archives: Europak

International Volunteer Day 2015

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On the occasion of the International Volunteer Day 2015 WAGGGS’ recognises the dedication, hard work and commitment of all our volunteers to making the Girl Guide and Girl Scouting experience so amazing.  Thank you all.
Have a great day.

 

The Scout Movement helps refugees and migrants

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Scouts and Guides contributing to refugee support activities in their local communities in Europe (34): What’s next after the #RefugeeResponseSeminar

During the last weekend in November, Guides and Scouts from 27 countries gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the #RefugeeResponseSeminar discussing how best the Scout and Guide Movements and other youth organisations can contribute to refugee and migrant support activities. The participants shared their experience and challenges gained from activities currently run to the benefit of refugees and migrants all over Europe and developed new ideas for future projects.

“As Scouts we are pragmatic.”, commented Andrea Demarmels, Chairperson of the European Scout Committee of WOSM, “We know that we cannot solve the long term challenges faced by refugees and migrants in Europe. We choose to take leadership with a pragmatic approach and react to the situation by joining forces with our local communities to make a difference for some of the people affected by the tragedy and consequences of war.”

The colourful “Wall of Ideas” illustrates the many proposals and concrete project ideas developed and collected over the weekend. Soon, these will be available for others who were note able to attend the seminar and seek inspiration to launch or continue their own initiative in their local communities.

In the meantime, you can join the public Facebook group set up for the newly created #RefugeeResponseNetwork and consult information made available on the event’s #RefugeeResponseWebsite; this is also where all resources and materials from the seminar will be published.

(Image: Luc Ibis Rubben 2015)

WAGGGS Call for Diversity Task Force Members

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The Europe Region WAGGGS is looking to recruit 5 volunteers to be part of the Diversity Task Force which is going to support the work of the region in implementing several projects on diversity in 2016.

Regional Circular 22 2015: “European Youth Event 2016: Call for participants

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After the success of the first European Youth Event in 2014, the Parliament of the European Union will once again open its doors to 5000 young people from all over Europe at the European Youth Event 2016 in Strasbourg (FR) on 20-21 May 2016.

The event aims to engage young people in political debate and society, giving highlight to important key issues such as peace, democracy, unemployment, work and environment.

Please find more details on how to apply in the Call for Participants dispatched with Regional Circular 22 2015. The deadline is 16 December 2015!

– Regional Circular 22 2015: “European Youth Event 2016: Call for participants (English, French)

A Scouting Nederlands programme for the refugee camp

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Scouts and Guides contributing to refugee support activities in their local communities in Europe (33): a story from the Scouting Regio ZON.

“A refugee camp with a capacity for 3000 people has been set up near Nijmegen. This site is called Heumensoord and is the responsibility of the Central Organisation for Refugees (COA) in the Netherlands. The COA also cooperates with a local volunteer organisation called STIP.

Heumensoord is in the centre of the Guiding/Scouting District of Region ZON, which has 39 guide/scout groups with approximately 1000 staff and 3300 members. As Heumensoord is located in our region, we wished to offer guide/scout programmes to the children in the camp. We estimated that the camp has about 430 children up to 12 years old and 100-200 between 13 and 18 years old.

Having first contacted the COA and STIP, our team had an initial meeting on October 19 2015, to work out plans for guide/scout programmes. We then contacted the Dutch Scouting Centre to inform them about our plans and request advice about the plans’ completeness, insurance issues, contact with the press, etc.

Everything then proceeded rapidly, with much work being done in only a few days, including (i) a logo and flyer (‘Who will help next Sunday?’), presented on Facebook and received 4000 responses within 2 days; (ii) communication groups for Facebook and WhatsApp; (iii) defining the programme and discussing it with the COA, particularly about the rules and the do’s and don’ts; and (iv) also having Syrian translators involved.

The first Guide/Scout meeting at Heumensoord took place on Sunday October 25th! There were 26 enthusiastic Scout leaders, including 2 who had just returned from the World Jamboree in Japan. We organised many typical and traditional Dutch games. There were reporters from the local newspapers, so we received a lot of publicity. It was all a great success and experience.

We were enthusiastic about this success and therefore decided to continue the programme every Sunday afternoon for the next 6 months. Subsequently, and very quickly, several great things happened: (i) a dedicated program team of 6 Scout leaders attends every week; (ii) there is much support from all members of our district: 20 staff leaders weekly ; (iii) we started fundraising, and a substantial budget was created within one week; and (iv) we made badges for the staff and for promotion (purchase your badge for € 10,- to support our programme at Heumensoord). In short, the programme is running well, with about 40-60 participants every week. We have already had several fantastic Sunday afternoons and are still going strong!

What’s the programme? What do we offer?

We have all types of games with the exception of computer games. All the children, young people and enthusiastic parents are welcome to attend.  At first we started with general games but gradually introducing more guiding/scouting games and structure. For example, we have included guiding/scouting skills such as the use of a compass, wind directions  and of course knots. The youngsters enjoy this very much so we plan to slowly increasing the skill levels each week. We also encourage the children to create their own games.

Our team and our programme will be present every Sunday in December. We think this is essential, since it is not appropriate to tell the refugees “Sorry, there’s no meeting next Sunday, because for us it is holiday time.”.

This is a wonderful programme to do. We are proud to be involved in it, proud to be scouts, and proud of all the volunteers who make themselves available for these children every week.”

If you are involved in a similar refugee support activity in your local community, let us know and we will share it, too: just complete this form!