Scouting sense
The World Scout Bureau recently relocated to Malaysia, and continues to promote its purpose and principles.
IT has 40 million members from all nationalities in more than 220 countries, and it holds a General Assembly every three years. At the Assembly, it considers policies and standards that will be applied globally.
It sounds a lot like the United Nations, but it’s not. It’s the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), and one of the largest youth organisations in the world.
The organisation aims to promote unity and the understanding of Scouting purposes and principles throughout the world.
Located right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur in Brickfields in the spanking new Menara Sentral Vista is the World Scout Bureau office.
The bureau in Geneva recently relocated to Malaysia, and the KL office was officially opened on 18 June last year by the Malaysian Prime Minister. The legal seat of WOSM remains in Geneva.
Walking through the office gives you a sense that it is like a mini United Nations, with its employees of various nationalities.
This diversity also reflects the core values of what Scouting is all about.
“When I became Secretary General, I did an organisational location review in which we engaged PriceWaterhouse to conduct a study. Economics was the driving force in relocating the Bureau from Geneva to Kuala Lumpur,” explains Scott A. Teare, Secretary General of WOSM during an interview in KL.
Teare, 60, became a Scout at the age of eight. He was hooked and has been a Scout since, making it a professional career.
He has attained the Boy Scouts of America’s highest award, the Eagle Scout Award, and in 2012, received the highest honour in World Scouting, the Bronze Wolf Award, in recognition of outstanding service by an individual to the World Scout Movement.
From among 120 candidates who applied for the position of Secretary General, Teare was chosen; he started serving in January 2013 in Geneva.
Teare explains that KL beat several SouthEast Asian countries like Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia due to various considerations.
“We compared cities like London, Paris and New York to Asia, and while economics was key, other factors weighed in were an international airport with good connectivity, weather, natural disasters, etc.
“With more than 70% of our members in Asia, we felt that an Asian Bureau made sense in order to be closer to the various National Scout Organisations and serve them better.”
Teare says that as of last January, they have 161 National Scout Organisations representing 223 countries and territories, and those are their customers.
To support the World Scout Movement, Teare said the World Scout Foundation was established to raise funds.
“The World Scout Foundation comprises prominent people around the world including the King of Sweden. The current chairman is a successful German businessman while Datuk Yeoh Soo Keng from the YTL group – who is smart and business savvy – is also in the group,” he says.
An executive director of YTL Corporation Bhd, Yeoh is the first Asian woman invited to the Board.
“This is a working Board which means members don’t just sit there without doing anything. They raise funds for two areas, for investment or an endowment fund that earns income, and for projects.”
As Secretary General, Teare has two roles: secretariat to the World Scout Committee and executive director of the World Scout Bureau.
“It’s important to know that this is a volunteer run organisation and the staff is here to support the direction the volunteers want to go,” he adds.
At the 40th World Scout Conference in Slovenia in August last year, Teare says an important mission statement was established. By 2023, Scouting will be the world’s leading educational youth movement, enabling 100 million youths to be active citizens, creating positive change in their communities and in the world, based on shared values.
Following the conference, new strategies and directions were adopted and presented in The Triennial Plan 2014-2017.
Their strategic priorities are youth engagement, educational methods, diversity and inclusion, social impact, communications and external relations, and governance.
Why is Scouting important? “Undergoing a Scouting programme prepares a young person for his or her future, and they learn to become a leader,” says Teare.
“My Scout Master, John McWilliams, who stood in the background, would let me make decisions and learn from mistakes as I served as a senior patrol leader. And I grew, not as a manager, but as a leader from those experiences,” he says.
Teare still addresses his Scout Master as “Mr McWilliams”, out of love and respect developed over the years.
“When I came home from school I would
put on my play clothes and go outside. I would become an instigator of play. Today, when young people get home from school they change into their play clothes and get onto the Internet, Facebook, play video games or watch TV. They become consumers of play,” says Teare who grew up in Michigan.
“This is important as it is also about how young people are preparing to face their future and enter the workforce. Scouting gets them out of the bedroom and puts them into a programme that teaches them not to focus on ‘me, me, me’. It teaches them to turn that into ‘we, we, we’, to worry about others and serve the community.
“I firmly believe that youths who undergo Scouting programmes become a better parent, spouse, employee, employer, and are better prepared to give back to the community,” Teare emphasises.
He remembers a friend in the Boy Scouts of America (BSOA) who had a very powerful message for young Americans; that “you can hide in your alley, your home basement, your gang, your bedroom, behind computer screens, but we will find you and we will invite you to join BSOA”.
“Do you know a 14-year-old boy in Texas would rather fall into a hole and be buried alive than be seen with his parents in a mall? But, it’s acceptable to be a Scout and go camping with his dad. The father or mother then gets to spend quality time with their children, meet other parents and get to know their children’s friends,” he explains.
Teare urges parents to take a look at the oath or Scout Promise and ask themselves if that is not exactly the code of conduct that they want for their children.
He says the concepts of duty to God, to others and to self is an educational process for young people to understand these values, adhere to them so it permeates their behaviour throughout life, making it a positive roadmap for their future.
“The Scouting programme is a perfect match for what parents want for their children so I would encourage parents to be involved in their child’s life. Don’t just drop them and drive off.”
When Teare newly arrived in KL and was dining at a restaurant, he noticed a family with three children beside his table. He thought how cool it was to see a family dining together.
“Then all of them took out their electronic devices and didn’t talk to each other. This family who had the opportunity to be together, were not focused on each other as they were distracted by their own devices the whole time.
“Parents must start by turning off their devices and focusing on their children. In our meetings, we tell people not to be distracted as you are not focusing or listening if you are reading your Facebook.”
Teare says children today spell “love” as “time” as what they want is time with their parents and that is missing in modern life.
On the organisation’s grand plan of reaching 100 million members globally, Teare says they need to review each country’s programmes individually, and are looking at the fund-raising, accounting system, training and recruitment programme among others.
“If you put a child in a local Scout group and the leader is untrained, you can expect that child will not get what he signed up for and will leave. We look at training programmes whereby a child joins a small group that has a trained leader,” he says.
“There is no plan on earth designed to fit all countries as there are too many cultural differences. So, we need to identify each country’s NSO strengths and weaknesses, then turn those weaknesses into strengths.
“It will not happen overnight and that is why we have marked 2023 as the deadline to reach 100 million members.”
From his years of Scouting and talking with kids, Teare says “there is no difference between a young person in Saudi Arabia, France or Malaysia. They listen to the same music, want the same clothes, and same things out of life”.
“They all want a better lifestyle than their parents’ and they want their parents to be proud of them. They may embrace different religions, but they believe in being kind and helping one another. This is the message I get from so many young people. There is much more that is similar than there is different,” Teare reveals.
“To parents and community leaders, if you have a child, nephew or niece who can benefit from the Scouting programme, please embrace it and get them involved.”
Scouting gets them out of the bedroom and puts them into a programme that teaches them not to focus on ‘me, me, me’. It teaches them to turn that into ‘we, we, we’.
—SCOTT A. TEARE