The International Wood Badge is intended for all those who would like to rekindle their passion for scouting and, in their own way, which might be different from anything known, contribute their piece to this vast and beautiful mosaic. Throughout the course and together with fellow scouts from all over Europe, we explore how our environment shapes our personal scouting experience.
The objective of the project is to connect relatively small national scout associations, which would have a hard time organizing a Wood Badge course by themselves. The curriculum of such a course includes understanding key ideas of scouting (mission, values, method), leadership of other volunteers, quality assurance of programme and processes and for each participant to answer for themselves what their future role in the organization will be. Organizing such a course may be difficult for partner organization due to lack of participants or trainers. The course gains further value due to the international aspect of it, since participants gain insight in a larger field of possibilities and solutions to similar challenges they might be facing.
THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
Participants understand key ideas of the scout movement (mission, values, method)
Participants set goals for their own involvement with the organization
Participants gain the skills and tools to lead a group of volunteers
Participants understand quality matrixes for scout programme and processes inside the organization.
Participants carry out their personal projects.
Participants remain active volunteers in organizations for at least another year of course participation.
This Woodbadge course is an invaluable experience for everyone. It may sound clichéd, but it truly provides you with practical knowledge, intertwined with the scouting experience and scouts from all over Europe. With the Wood Badge course, your world expands, you make new connections, and most importantly, you gain more than just the basics for effectively performing the role of a scout group leader. To me, Wood Badge means new people I can turn to, a new perspective, higher self-confidence, and part of the journey to finding myself. In short, it’s epic!
Laura Kalan, Kranj, Slovenia
ACTIVITIES
The project aims at organizing a course following the Wood Badge framework. This will consist of:
At the main week course, the emphasis is on a quality first person scout experience for our participants and giving them the theoretical basis for desired competences – usually 2nd or 3rd week (8 days) in August.
Through the personal project, participants gain desired competences through experiences and practice.
On the follow-up weekend, the participants reflect on their work and the competences they gained with the help and coaching of their personal mentor – usually the last weekend in February, the year after the main week.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR PARTICIPANTS …
… who are active adult scout volunteer youth workers and already have experience running programs for members within their national scout organizations. In the future, they should ideally plan to take on key leadership roles, running scout organizations and program activities with other volunteers.
We want the result of the project to be an unforgettable, transformative life experience for participants, where they would coordinate their personal mission with the mission of the scout movement and set their own path, activities or projects, where they will educate young people into engaged, responsible, autonomous and solidarity individuals.
We want our project to have an impact on the participants, local scout organizations, young people for whom the participants will prepare activities and personal projects, other volunteers with whom the participants work and lead, and national scout organizations, which we hope will know how to integrate experience, content, ideas and highlights into their operations and thereby raise the quality of their programming content and organizational level of operation. With the implementation of the project, we want to facilitate international cooperation between the participating countries, exchange experiences and prepare for the successful implementation of future, even more ambitious international educational projects.
Projects were funded by Erasmus+: Youth, Youth mobility and Mobility of youth workers. We thank Slovenian national agency Zavod MOVIT – Institute for the development of youth mobility for the support.
