Please visit our Scouts of the World contact list page in order to find the contact person in your National Scout Organisation.

The SW Partnership cover various topics including

• Exchange ideas and resources on the SW Award and Rover programme;
• Exchange trainers;
• Twin SW Bases and organise youth exchanges in order to provide young people with more opportunities for SW Discoveries and SW Voluntary Services within an international framework;
• Develop partnerships with specialised NGOs and governmental or inter-governmental agencies working on the Millennium Development Goals;
• Help each other’s in fundraising.

Each National Scout Organisation is free to develop partnerships with other NSOs of its choice. The SW partnership is not top-down managed; it grows from initiatives taken by NSOs. The World Scout Bureau, Central Office and Regional Offices, will help in establishing contacts and reaching agreements.

Exchange ideas and resources

The SW website already proposes a number of resources which can help organise SW Discoveries and Voluntary Services. However, each NSO has its own needs and experiences in the fields of Environment, Development and Peace according to its own natural, cultural, and social environment. Therefore groups of NSOs can be set up in order to develop together more appropriate resources and share them with others.

Exchange trainers

To prepare and run SW Discoveries, NSOs need efficient trainers in the fields of environment education, peace education and development education. Trainers able to help young people actively discover the problems faced by the community in these fields, develop awareness and commitment, acquire skills and plan SW Voluntary Services and projects.
Neighbouring NSOs can help each other’s by creating a pool of trainers prepared to intervene in several countries and to work together in developing training programmes.

Twin SW bases

When an NSO is developing one or more SW Bases, it should look at the possibility to twin them with other SW Bases abroad.
Let us illustrate this by an example: Eclaireuses et Eclaireurs de France have decided to create a SW base in their national centre in Bécours, an abandoned village which has been reconstructed by Scouts. They intend to organise SW Discoveries and Voluntary Services in this base, specialised on rural development and environment. At the same time, they have proposed to the Egyptian Scout and Guide Federation to twin Bécours with the Sea-Scout Centre of Alexandria, because they have heard that Egyptian Scouts have developed a project in this centre to assist working children employed in the many workshops that are surrounding the centre. Thanks to this twinning, Egyptian and Arab Scouts would be able to go to Bécours and discover the social and environmental problems of a remote rural area in France, while French and European Scouts would be able to discover the problem of child labour in developing countries.
We have to recognise that Scouting is probably the largest youth network in the world, but we are not always able to use it for educational aims, e.g. to help people to discover the reality of interdependence and globalisation. The Scouts of the World Award should make a difference on this issue.

Develop partnerships with specialised NGOs and governmental or intergovernmental agencies

A number of NSOs have strong partnerships with specialised NGOs (environment, development or peace) as well as governmental or UN agencies. We could multiply the impact of these partnerships by sharing information about them.
For example, the Arab Scout Region and the Africa Scout Region are developing strong partnerships with UNICEF or UNAIDS, among others, on the prevention of HIV-AIDS. In these regions, Scouting is considered by these agencies as a reliable and effective partner. Many NSOs from Europe, Eurasia or Asia-Pacific Regions should be more active on HIV-AIDS prevention because many young people in these regions are threatened or infected by the virus. However, in Europe, Eurasia and Asia-Pacific, very often UN agencies or specialised NGOs do not believe that Scouting could do something in this field.
Sharing information on projects and partnerships could help the Scout Movement to acquire more credibility all over the world. The Scouts of the World partnership can help achieve this result.

Help each other in fundraising

The success of the SW Award requests financial resources in order to be able to develop and disseminate accurate educational resources, equip SW bases, run SW discoveries and Voluntary services, share trainers, organise youth exchanges, etc.
We have to help each other to contact potential sponsors and donors and explain them how the SW Award is essential to help today’s young people face the challenges of future world.

Through the SW partnership, NSOs can share their contacts, and help each other to develop projects and carry out successful fundraising campaigns.