JUBAIL, 28 January 2006 — The International Union of Muslim Scouts and the Saudi Boy Scouts Association will host an international scout camp in Jubail Industrial City from Feb. 2 to 10. Under the banner “Together for Peace” patrols of six to eight scouts aged between 16 and 25 from around the world are expected to attend.
The event, underwritten by the government and offering full hospitality, is free to participants. Its main aim is the spreading of a peace culture among the world’s youth, to reinforce the friendship, and to make the tolerance culture, love and peace among all nations regardless of creed or race.
The camp will be located just north of Jubail in a wooded public park near the sea. Everything necessary to ensure a good scout camp has been provided by the Saudi hosts from airport reception teams and full medical facilities through to the practical minutiae of camping.
Accommodation will be luxurious by scouting standards — tables and beds and even electricity in the tents. Each visiting group will have a dedicated area to present an exhibition reflecting the values and flavor of its home country.
The organizers hope that the encampment will have many positive results on the participants. It will introduce visiting foreign scouts to civilizations, traditions and the heritage of Saudi Arabia as well as other countries. They will acquire new friends from different places of the world and new skills.
At a personal level, each participant will learn the importance of dialogue and cultural exchange and the need to live in peace with the nations of the world.
Throughout the world there are more than 28 million scouts — ranging from boys and girls to young men and women. Some 216 countries and territories have scouting organizations of which 155 have internationally recognized national scout organizations.
The Jubail camp comes just one year ahead of the 21st World Scout Jamboree which will be hosted by the Scout Association of the United Kingdom from July 27 until Aug. 8, 2007.
The Jamboree Camp, to be held in Gilwell Park, the traditional home of scouting, will bring together 40,000 Scouts, Venturers, leaders, and staff for 12 days.
In 2007, the centennial year of the founding of the Scouting movement, the jamboree theme will be “One World, One Promise.” Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the Scouting movement, also pioneered the very first jamboree at Olympia in London in 1920.
