Ramallah – After a long period of suspension of contact with analogous groups and networks at the global level, the Scout Movement in Palestine, re-connects with its long history taking part gatherings and discussions promoted by scouts associations at the regional and international levels. Two delegations of Palestinian Scout Associations in recent weeks took part in a Scouts Camp in Poland – in the context of new relations of cooperation and twinning in agreement with Polish Scouting – and in a gathering of Arab Scouts in Morocco which started on 13 July.
More initiatives, held in Ramallah and other Palestinian towns, marked the official re-entering of Palestinian scouting in the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) the International organism from which the Palestinian scouts distanced themselves in 1948, at the time of the Nakba. The re-integration of Palestinian scout movement within the WOSM was sanctioned by a unanimous vote at the end of February by 162 national movements, members of WOSM.
The return of Palestinian scouting as a member of the international movement was welcomed also by the Palestine’s political representatives, starting with President Mahmud Abbas. The intention is to revive Palestinian Scout Region comprising four units (West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, Lebanon). Today the Palestinian association has already 120 groups in West Bank, over 30 in Gaza and another 30 in Lebanon.
Considered one of the world’s oldest scout movements, Palestinian scouting started in 1912 with the formation of the first scout group at the Anglican Church of Saint George, which belongs to the Anglican diocese of Jerusalem. During its long history Palestinian Scouting suffered persecution in the period of British rule in the second half of the 1930s.
Source: Fides News
