Kyrgyzstan to introduce scouting for youth

Bishkek, June 6, 2022. /Kabar/. Scouting for youth is being introduced in Kyrgyzstan. This movement will create new opportunities for non-formal education not through lectures, but through practical activities, youth policy expert at the Ministry of Culture of Kyrgyzstan Murataly Uchkempirov said during a press conference at Kabar News Agency. He added that children will learn to work as a team and be useful to society through practical outdoor activities. "The scouts will learn to be safe in nature and take care of the environment. Now children are largely distracted only by smartphones, but in scouting they will learn to interact with other people and develop leadership qualities. The movement is completely voluntary. Scouting has no political or religious motives,” the expert said. Regional Director of the World Scout Bureau (WSB) Eurasia Support Centre Tirumale Venugopal noted that the scouting is the largest youth movement of the world, uniting 59 million scouts and volunteers in more than 200 countries around the world. In Kyrgyzstan, we want to work closely with the ministries to develop our programme that is attractive to young people in the republic. He said that a seminar on the work of the movement was held in Bishkek the other day, and participants were so excited and asked questions about further implementation of the movement in the country. "For hundred years scouting has equipped young people with life and leadership skills to develop the full potential and become active citizens of the community. What is the scouting? What do we do to young people? We help them to develop physically, intellectually, socially, spiritually, emotionally, and as a result, to be prepared in life. Finally, scouting is voluntary, non-political, educational movement for young people, that is coming to Kyrgyzstan and we hope to have some bride super stars in the future, that we will definitely have many heroes from Kyrgyzstan,” Venugopal added. The participants of the press conference also stressed that since the founding of scouting in 1907, many famous people have been scouts, including astronaut Neil Armstrong, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, famous musician Sir Paul McCartney, UN 8th Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.