Category Archives: Refugee Support

Syrian Refugee Scouts Take Possession of Their Scout House in Turkey

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Ever since the wars in Syria started, Turkey has been welcoming large numbers of refugees, many of whom continue to stay in refugee camps in the southern border region of the country.

Good morning Kemal. This world may change, after all. Good morning. (*)

Dimitra sharing food with refugees in Lesvos

This picture was taken a year ago on the island of Lesvos in Greece. Together with the following text it was published by journalist and local Scout Leader Stratis Balaskas on the website of the Greek news agency he works for. A year later, the situation on Lesvos, Chios, Kos, other islands and mainland Greece is still far from what we would like it to see. And to this day local Scouts are involved in numerous activities supporting refugees across the country. The story could well describe some action taken place yesterday.

Refugees join the guides and scouts for activities and fun outdoor

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Scouts and Guides contributing to refugee support activities in their local communities in Europe (46): a story from the Scouts and guides in the area Bergen, Norway.

The guides and scouts of Ulriken , Bergen in Norway invited refugee children from the Refugee Centre in their local area to participate in guide and scout activities. A day in the Refugee Centre can be both boring and long but together with the guides and scouts, the refugee children got a chance to experience days with activities that for them were new and in many ways strange and having not experienced them before. The children went sliding on a tarpaulin, made bread with the dough twisted on a stick and baked it over an open fire and, with headlamps, on a dark winter night, they went on a hike, and sat by the camp fire and drank hot chocolate. The refuges were taught “joggi, joggi, joggi” (the guide/scout shout) at the first meeting and in the corridors of the Refugee Centre would be heard “joggi, joggi”. The meetings were a great success for both the guides and scouts as well as the refugee children and you could hear they were counting down to the next time they many more events have been planned.

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A tarpaulin makes a good sleigh on the snow.

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!

“What are pancakes?” – “Come, let’s cook them together!”

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Scouts and Guides contributing to refugee support activities in their local communities in Europe (45): a story from Vienna in Austria.

“What are pancakes?” – “Come, let’s cook them together!” This is the kind of dialogue you may have recently heard at the weekly meeting of the “Camelot” Rangers and Rovers (commonly called RaRo, these are Scouts and Guides aged between 16 and 21 years) of Vienna’s 32nd Scout and Guide Group (Vienna 32) in Austria (members of Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs). The pancake cooking activity was part of the programme run by the Rangers and Rovers with and for unaccompanied young refugees in the framework of the #rarofugees project launched by the Vienna Scouts and Guides last winter.

“If I can only decide one thing for my children, then I would like them to be able to remain active in Scouting”

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Scouts and Guides contributing to refugee support activities in their local communities in Europe (44): a story from Ullerslev in Denmark, first published in the Danish daily Politiken.

No need to know Danish to understand the “peppermint game”: is came: pass a small peppermint sweet from a dry spaghetti you hold in your mouth to another one held by your friend; without the help of your hands of course! But the task is not easy at all: Raman and Ibrahim, 8 and 10 years old, make efforts to get their spaghettis to meet in the hole of the small peppermint sweet and move their heads so that the sweet slides from one spaghetti to the other without falling down.