News
15/02/2008
Scout Group scoops share of £100,000
One Scout Group is £2,000 better off thanks to a unique awards scheme. The scheme, Londonations, split £100,000 between 50 organisations working in the capital.
Around 300 groups applied but 8th Holborn Scout Group’s application clearly impressed the panel of judges, who were looking for groups which tackled a social issue, reached Londoners in need of aid or brought people of different backgrounds together.
Group Scout Leader Julian Fulbrook answered our questions about their winning application:
What project will you use the money for?
To support our work with the Duke of Edinburgh's scheme. We bid for money for a training weekend at the Longridge Scout Boating Centre, to provide our over 14s with important skills for dealing with any emergencies while canoeing and camping. With this injection of funding we have now turned this into two weekends, and have thrown open the next weekend to our District and County.
This is an age group where teenage peer group pressures, and gang culture, often causes a falling off in schoolwork, leisure activities and in Scouting, particularly in inner city areas like ours. But our Duke of Edinburgh Award programme continues to attract youngsters, and to improve their opportunities, even though we deal with some very challenged individuals.
The scheme funds projects that will make a big difference to local people. How do you think your project will change the lives of your surrounding community?
Like all good Scouting, it is life enhancing. A horrifying statistic recently was that the local government ward in which our headquarters is based, King's Cross, has just ten young people at university - from a ward population of 11,000! As we know most of those ten successes through their Scouting with us, this is life enhancing for them in itself.
What are the challenges that face Scouting in urban areas?
We provide Scouting for approximately 80 girls and boys drawn from the streets around in Holborn and King's Cross. As well as weekly meetings we organise outings, camps and expeditions.
Our Scouts are drawn from two local government wards in the London Borough of Camden, which is an area of multiple deprivation and has many Black and Minority Ethnic communities.
Scouting keeps youngsters off the streets, but it also acts as a 'supplementary school' and as a ladder out of difficult circumstances. Our local neighbourhood residents, although not materially well blessed, strongly support our work because they can see Scouting achieves great things for local youngsters.
Tell us more about them team at 8th Holborn Scout Group
We have some very loyal Leaders and Helpers, but also a 'revolving door' of people who come to London, often as students, stay for a few years and then return home. Scouting magazine had an article on a Finnish Leader we had, Lisa Markula, which sums up the sort of international people we have coming through the Group. So I think it is that 'creative mix' that assists.
If your Group has had a recent success, we might be interested in featuring your story either online or in Scouting magazine? Email web.team@scout.org.uk with your story and photos.
