Pattern of young people needs in Scouting is changing.
Kim Balogun Olamilekan Amos
Pattern of young people needs in Scouting is changing.
Hq Commissioner,Lagos State Scout Council, Raji Bomodeoku Says!
-Headquarters Commissioner sensitizes leaders on new trend
-There is a significant decline in grass-roots activities in Scouting
-Lack of national youth program policy contributed to TSAN’s failure to meet young people’s needs, sustain grass root activities.
-There is a remarkable brain drain in the numbers of qualified unit leaders capable of delivering the youth program.
-For years, leaders escaped accountability , adherence with the Movement’s principles.
The Headquarters Commissioner for Tourism in the Lagos State Scout Council, Raji Bomodeoku has called on leaders to pay close attention to the changing pattern of young people’s needs whilst looking at the correlation between the contemporary needs of young people and what is currently offered under the association’s youth program. Raji who⁸ was speaking at a day workshop organized for commissioners in Lagos decried the declining grass-roots activities in today’s scouting. He attributed this trend to the changing pattern of young people’s needs,stressing that the current national scouting model no longer appeal to young people, and does not consider the exponential rate at which the world has evolved which he said was partly as a result of globalization.
He continued assessing how world Scouting Body, WOSM has responded to same concern, speaking of which same has not been adapted in the NSO.
He cited the World Scout Youth Policy, a WOSM Policy intervention adopted at the 40th World Scout Conference, Slovenia in 2014. He added that while this conference through its resolution, “2014-08” noted the changing pattern of young people needs and called on NSOs to devise national framework in pursuance of these changing needs, the Nigerian NSO, regrettably, has not taken any practical steps to advance the cause of this solution other than group or individualized effort by a few people within the NSO over the years which has only yielded little result.
Raji concluded that this has contributed to the declining grass-roots activities in the NSO. He was quoted to have said ” there is a strong association between the youth program and activities turnover at the grass-roots level.
as adults in scouting,we see youth program as providing space for young people, space in which there should always be the possibility of new experiences, opportunities and new ideas, and not following a continued pattern of pathological use of structured, archaic institutional experience passed down from generations without adaptation with the current reality and needs of young people.
Young people also believe that youth program should take responsibility for challenging their assumptions, attitudes and behaviour and, whenever possible, presenting them with positive options and choices. Formal, planned approaches were not necessarily the best way of achieving these ends and the scouting’s educational purpose would be achieved when the NSO adheres with the global best practices and strategy already developed with evidence -based solution to these needs.
Raji described the needs of young people whilst identifying the key components capable of sustaining grass-roots activities. He highlighted innovative youth program, adult in Scouting, structures and good governance as the major push factors influencing grassroots scouting mobilization and sustainability.
Speaking further, Raji bemoaned what he described as a “remarkable brain drain” in the numbers of qualified unit leaders capable of delivering the youth program experience. Raji, a former District Commissioner for the former Festival Scout Association expressed disappointment in the rapid decline of grass-roots activities across the country and particularly in the LA. He was quoted to have said ” I did a “convenient sampling” of my former LA where I was the District Commissioner, the data I gathered reveals statistically striking association between the dearth of skilled manpower (qualified unit leaders)available to train the young people and the declining youth activities.
Speaking on why youth program development has remained a challenge, Raji posited that leaders at the helm of the association’s affairs have over the years escaped accountability for their stewardship and there is virtually non confirmity with WOSM standard which has resulted to the current situation. Raji ended by calling for a stronger institution to improve accountability and hold leaders serving the association accountable.
