Rebuilding Namibian links

Network members (17+) and Explorers (14 to 17-years-old) travelled to Namibia to continue work started two years ago.

In 2017 the group established a kindergarten, garden and camp group for Scouts in Omakange in Kunene Region. Two years later they returned but this time visited Windhoek to have an urban experience.

The Falkirk contingent of Networkers Chris Campbell and Fiona Andrews and Antonine Explorers Kerr McLaren and Calum Andrews were part of a 30-strong team, who spent three weeks in Namibia.

They gave the Otto ya Nankudhu Pre-primary and Homework Centre in Okuryangava, a facelift.

Working alongside some local Scouts and community members they transformed the site by painting the outside of the school room, built a tyre swing (using Scouting skills to lash the poles together) dug swales and berms for a vegetable garden and began the erection of a fence around the site. The vegetable plot will provide food to the centre, as some students were missing school because they did not have food for their lunch boxes. Namibian Scouts will over the course of time plant the garden and maintain it.

As well as meeting the High Commissioner, the Scots contingent spent an evening with the Scouts of Namibia and showed them some ceilidh dances and finished with a Strip the Willow with couples made up of Scottish and Namibian Scouts.

Networker Kenneth Foggo was in Madagascar with Scouts Scotland.

A group of 19 Networkers and leaders from across Scotland spent four and a half weeks in Madagascar in June/July 2019. They helped the Tily Scout Association of Madagascar with various building projects at their Tranom-Bitsika campsite near the Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar.

They also spent time helping – along with the Malagasy Scouts – with building work at Akany Avoko Faravohitra girls’ home in Antananarivo. The trip finished with a week of R&R in the South of Madagascar, which included hiking in search of rare species of lemur.