It’s dyb, dyb, dyb... job, job, job as Scouts learn to find work
TYING knots and wild camping are not directly relevant to most people’s careers.
But the Scouts believe they can be an integral part of teaching young people how to get a job.
The organisation has undergone a “contemporary” rebranding, designed to convince ethnic minority parents that signing up their children is worthwhile. It will focus on skills and employability amid concerns that some families are put off by “old-fashioned stereotypes” about Scouting – such as the dyb, dyb, dyb, (do your best) dob, dob, dob (do our best) motto, which was actually part of the Cubs’ ceremony, but is often associated with the Scouts.
It will continue to offer traditional outdoor activities but also emphasise the “soft skills” such as teamwork and leadership.
Matt Hyde, the chief executive of the Scout Association, said worries about employability were “more acute in a competitive workspace”, as robots would challenge today’s young people for jobs. “I think that as we go into a world of increased automation, those so-called softer skills, the social skills, and the creativity that you develop through non-formal learning organisations like Scouting, become critical because it’s the hardest thing to automate,” he told
The Daily Telegraph.
He said that the organisation was trying to become more diverse and that he hoped “selling the benefits” to minority communities would challenge Scouting’s image as overwhelmingly white, middle-class and male.
Its polling found that, when shown the new marketing, black and minority ethnic parents were 69 per cent more likely to send their children to Scouts and 44 per cent more likely to volunteer. The organisation is also on a drive to reduce its waiting list, which currently has 57,000 children on it, but needs more adult volunteers so it can take on more members. It has also launched a simpler logo with a “more contemporary look and feel” in order to attract more diverse recruits. The £5,000 logo has been designed to look better online and in social media posts. “That data tells us that this is going to help us to achieve our targets, so 50,000 more young people, 10,000 more leaders, but also more people from diverse backgrounds [will join] so we’re more representative of modern Britain,” Mr Hyde said. He added that Muslim children were one of the “fastest-growing areas” for Scouting, prompted partly by changes to the uniform to allow for “cultural sensitivities”. Scouting launched a new uniform for Muslim girls in 2012, incorporating long sleeves and a “hoodie dress”. The movement has also launched new groups in hospitals, prisons and schools to target children who would not otherwise have been brought to a group by their parents, in particular a session for Roma children in the Page Hall area of Sheffield, as well as Scout groups held during the school day using teachers as Scout leaders. “I don’t believe we’d have reached those kids if we’d have said come back at 7pm to the Scout hut,” Mr Hyde said. “Our data is improving in terms of how we’re becoming more inclusive and more representative of society. We want to go quicker. We’ve had £400 million worth of cuts in youth services and those cuts will have tended to fall on lower socioeconomic communities who have been using those youth services previously, so there is a need there.
“Our look and feel and services have to be accessible for people from those backgrounds. Our hope, having tested it, is it has got that broad appeal.” Last week, the Scout Association announced it had grown to 638,827 members in the UK, with 10,699 new youth members and 9,371 adult volunteers joining in 2018.