Members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) gathered in Kandersteg, Switzerland, from 11 to 14 May for the 2nd World Scout Education Congress to discuss world trends and how to address them in line with the Scout Movement’s Vision 2023, and the future of education and dialogue. Discussions and reflections focused on what challenges young people of today will face and how Scouts can continue to be adaptive to changing times, becoming ever more inclusive of human diversity using creative new educational technologies.
KAICIID Senior Adviser, Professor Patrice Brodeur, led three sessions on dialogue, religion and spirituality, Duty to God and spiritual guidelines. In these sessions, the Scouts explored the importance of dialogue skills and how they should and can adapt to a variety of contexts in which they live worldwide, all of which require increased dialogical skills to be active citizens and Messengers of Peace. They also learned how best to respond to exclusivist fundamentalism leading to violent extremism.
“What emerged as the key lesson for me during this Congress is the realisation that the leading role Scouts play in non-formal education worldwide has now begun to impact formal education. At the heart of the Scouting approach is ‘learning by doing’. So training Scouts worldwide in dialogue means that they learn dialogue skills by practicing it wherever they are worldwide. The potential impact of such a pragmatic approach is enormous, and several cases have already emerged from the on-going 'Dialogue for Peace Programme' and trainings KAICIID coordinates with WOSM,” said Prof. Brodeur.
WOSM’s Secretary General, Mr. Ahmad Alhendawi, concluded his opening remarks with global trends especially for young people and education, and encouraged the Scout Leaders from over 150 countries who attended the event, to “challenge yourselves and get out of your comfort zone. To do that, we need to engage with the world around us!” The session immediately following his plenary presentation opened with: “And how can we better engage the world around us? By practicing the skills of dialogue in our daily lives.” Through such training, both WOSM and KAICIID are impacting change in the near and far future for peace and reconciliation worldwide.