An African Adventure – Scouts in Kenya

A small team of Leaders and Instructors from Petersham & Ham Sea Scouts and Erik Armstrong ESU are on an expeditionary 9 day trip to Kenya

The expedition is partly an educational sightseeing visit but includes a large element of community development where the team is spending 5 days volunteering in a local school, The Walk Academy, which has just formed a new Scout Group.

The trip also included a visit to the grave of Lieutenant-General The 1st Baron Baden-Powell in St. Peter’s Cemetery in the Wajee Nature Park. The ashes of this wife, Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, are interred beside her husband. Kenya has declared Baden-Powell’s grave a national monument. Scouts consider the grave, “one of the most revered shrines and pilgrimage sites in the world.”

The inscription on the gravestone reads:

Robert Baden Powell

Chief Scout of the World
22nd February 1857 – 8th January 1941

Olave Baden Powell
World Chief Guide
22nd February 1889 – 25th June 1977

Chris Wright, Group Scout Leader writes:

“We have had an incredibly rewarding week working with the team and children at the Walk Academy in London, Nakuru, who look after children who live on the nearby dump, and my team and Young People are all very sad that tomorrow will be our last day with them before we have an adventure-filled weekend and then head home.  Feedback from the school has been very positive and we appear to be completing projects far quicker than the usual school groups they generally have helping them.

Ladders – a universally popular Scout game

Whilst here we have held a one hour Scouts meeting each afternoon right after school . We have given each of the 30 Kenyan Scouts a t-shirt, scarf and World Membership Badge, the 2 leaders now have new uniforms. We taught them some of our favourite games and today we took our Young People to the Kenya Scout Association Shop in Nakuru to buy Scouting merchandise for ourselves.  We were also able to buy leader manuals and section books for the Kenyan Cubs and Scouts so that they can start to follow the local Kenyan programme.”

The team return home on Sunday 1st September after a mini-safari at Lake Nakuru National Park and a visit (hopefully) to the world famous Thompson Falls.

District & County Badge added to the visitor’s wall at the B-P site in Nyeri