Scouts Founder's Day to be commemorated in low key ceremony

Uhuru Kenyatta Amason Kingi

In this picture taken on November 24, 2019, President Uhuru Kenyatta awards Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi a non-Scout Thanks Award for invaluable support to the Movement during the Kenya Scouts Association Patron's Day at State House, Nairobi.
 
 

Photo credit: PSCU

What you need to know:

  • The event to be marked at Baden Powell Memorial Park in Nyeri town will be an invite-only function.
  • The movement with over 1.4million membership in Kenya was started in 1910 by Baden Powell.

Kenya Scouts Movement will start vetting it senior leadership in an effort  revamp the movement in the country.

This comes as scouts worldwide mark Scouts Founder’s Day in a low key ceremony in Nyeri.

Owing to Covid-19 containment measures, KSA announced that the event to be marked on Saturday at Baden Powell Memorial Park in Nyeri town will be an invite-only function with not more than 200 guests in line with coronavirus measures.

Speaking in Nyeri the scout’s commissioner Mr Victor Radido said that the movement had been infiltrated by leaders who come in without going through the proper channels and training and end up messing up the system.

“We have decided to do fresh vetting for all the scout leaders. We are separating the wheat from the chaff because we have realised that a number of leaders get into the movement without proper leaders and they are the same leaders who end up messing up the system,” he said.

Vetting exercise

The vetting exercise set to begin after the Founder’s Day will see all scout leaders brought together despite how long their membership is and vetted to ensure that only the right people are left in the voluntary movement.

The country suspended all gatherings in March 2020 to curb further spread of the virus which has claimed more than 1,800 lives.

The event will bring together about 200 scouts from all over the country with only a few foreign scouts expected to attend.

The movement with over 1.4million membership in Kenya was started in 1910 by Baden Powell.

Powell died in 1941 and was buried in Nyeri town. His wife Olave Powell, who was the head of the Girl Guides movement, was also buried in the same grave.

Scouts Founder’s Day

The annual Scouts Founder’s Day is traditionally preceded by a week of camping dubbed Founderee Camp, which attracts tens of thousands of scouts from all over the world. This year the camp was however cancelled.

Kenya Scout’s Association (KSA) sent out letters to all the schools cancelling the commemoration ceremony on Saturday.

However, Mr Radido maintained that students would commemorate the day in their respective schools and proceed with the activities of the day as usual.

“The National Scouts Board has embarked on an elaborate three-year plan which involves innovation and technology and governance, youth agenda and social environmental issues all to help our youth,” he said.

At the same time, South Korean government will sponsor the construction of a 200 million Baden Powell Centre of Excellence building set to be put up in Nyeri county.

Centre of Excellence

In a memorandum of agreement signed between the county government of Nyeri and the World Scout Parliamentary Union (WSPU), the county government also agreed to donate a 20-acre piece of land for the centre's construction.

The parties agreed to work together so as to increase the visibility of Nyeri county as the Scouts founder’s home.

According to Dagoretti South MP, John Kiarie, who is also WSPU President in Kenya, the memoranda will increase the visibility of parliamentarian scouts in the country.

“It will also popularise and market Nyeri town as Baden Powell’s home to the world so as to attract other universal organisations,” he said.

In the agreement the parliamentary scout union is mandated to promote the scouts’ fraternity locally, regionally and internationally as a scout Tourist city.

WSPU will also seek to change legislation governing scouting in the country in a bid to improve governance, funding and oversight of the movement.