By: Blonde Two
Put your hand up if you were a Guide or Scout.
I hope lots of you are now enthusiastically waving your arms around. I am, in fact I am waving both arms around because in my time I have been both a Guide and a Scout.
Now keep your hand up if you feel that either Guiding or Scouting taught you some important life-skills. You know the type of thing: team work, determination, resilience, the ability to cook soggy dough on the end of a dirty stick!
Now keep you hand up (sorry if those arms are aching) if you feel that those life-skills have helped you at key times during your adult life. Maybe some difficult times, maybe some challenging ones.
WELL…
Earlier this week there was a very interesting article in The Guardian that reported on studies in Scotland which had found that those who had been Scouts or Guides were 15% less likely to suffer from anxiety or mood disorders in later life than those that hadn’t.
This study wasn’t an attempt to prove the benefits of Scouting and Guiding, it was the National Child Development Study which looked at many aspects of growing up. One of the leading professors described this result as ‘startling’. I wasn’t startled.
I have been a Brownie, a Guide, a Scout Leader and now a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Leader. I have seen many young people (including my own children) develop essential skills through these programmes, I have witnessed their lives change through them. I have witnessed it and they have come back to tell me the difference I have made.
Which just goes to prove that we Blondes and a million other youth volunteers out there were right… all along! Now maybe our governments will sit up and take notice!
Granny would be so proud! Love, B2’s GM
I certainly hope so 🙂