On Sunday, 13th of July, four workshops chaired by members of the World Scout Committee and Educational Methods Committee will take place in advance of the World Scout Conference in Korea. These Workshops will take place at the Conference Centre from 14.00-17.00. While three of the workshops will be on Youth Programme, one will be on Scouting's Profile (Strategic Priority 7).

Significant progress has been made in each of the areas covered by the workshops on Sunday, which will be reported at the Conference. With active participation from National Scout Organizations we are anticipating detailed discussions on the specific topics during these workshops.

Governments should recognise volunteering as a legitimate job-seeking activity, according to a report into young adult volunteering published this week in the United Kingdom.

The Morgan Inquiry, supported by The UK Scout Association, includes recommendations for a flexible day off to encourage volunteering, an ‘industry standard’ award scheme to acknowledge skills developed through volunteering and better signposting of voluntary opportunities.

Barcelona, Spain based Eduard Vallory has just completed his two-year doctoral research on 'World Scouting as a global citizenship builder', as a Research Fellow (2004-06) of Fitzwilliam College - University of Cambridge. His remarkable thesis titled 'Global Citizenship Education – Study of the ideological bases, historical development, international dimension, and values and practices of World Scouting' is available in both English and Catalan.

Dr. Jacques Moreillon, former Secretary General of the World Organization for the Scout Movement (WOSM) pinpointed its relevance and contributions during his comments as part of the thesis committee: “This thesis is not just exceptional, it is unique. Unique because it is the first ever written academic study on World Scouting, both in its origin, evolution and globality. The only other work that has endeavoured to give an idea of the history and contents of World Scouting has been Laszlo Nagy's "250 million Scouts", but it was not - nor did it pretend to be - a comprehensive academic study”.

26 Mayo 2008 - El movimiento de voluntariado para la mejora del medio ambiente ha adquirido bastante más fuerza tras el anuncio hoy de que cerca de 28 millones de Scouts de 156 países participarán en iniciativas ecológicas de carácter comunitario como parte de la nueva alianza con la campaña global A Limpiar el Mundo (Clean Up the World).

La nueva relación anunciada hoy en Australia por la Secretaria de Parlamento Australiano para la Inclusión Social y el Sector de Voluntariado, la Senadora Ursula Stephens, el Presidente y Fundador de A Limpiar el Mundo Ian Kiernan AO* y el Comisario en Jefe de los Scouts de Australia John Ravenhall AM*, aumentará substancialmente el número de voluntarios de A Limpiar el Mundo, campaña que ya estaba movilizando a unos 35 millones de personas cada año.

Imagine an ongoing international opportunity to enter into the real adventure of today's world: protecting the environment, working for development, challenging ethnic and nationalistic prejudices and building peace within and between communities; in one thought, contributing to making the world a better place.

All this and more is currently happening through the efforts of thousands of Rovers from all over the world that are working in their Scouts of the World Award.

More and more countries have adopted and implemented this world initiative within their programme for the Rover section. Here is some news from all corners of the globe:

Scouts are making sure they will be prepared for World Environment Day (WED) on the 5th of June, with this year's theme being 'CO2 Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy.' This theme challenges all of us to look critically at our day-to-day lives and take steps to reduce our climate change impact.

Scouts are already doing many good turns for the environment and focussing on the climate change problem. Scouts Canada have a Climate Change Ambassadors Programme and have worked with 10 countries in Southern Africa to develop their climate change programmes.

Friday 16 May 2008 - Represented by its Acting Secretary General, Mr. Luc Panissod, the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) participated in a new meeting of the Alliance of Youth CEOs. These organisations have been working together since 1996, when they realised that their 6 movements had great potential for joint advocacy work for young people. The Alliance, which altogether represent more than a 100 million young people, the widest component of organised youth movements in the world, aims to raise international awareness on youth issues through its advocacy work.

A campaigning project to rescue and revive an endangered and environmentally-sensitive urban park in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod has won the 2008 Volvo Adventure and the US$10,000 first prize. The five students of the 'Green Sail' team, beat off stiff competition at the World Final in Gothenburg, Sweden, earlier this week.

The finalists, aged 13 - 17 from 15 countries, had all presented outstanding projects tackling a wide range of environmental challenges facing their community, with flow on benefits to the worldwide environment.

Maltese Scouts and Girl Guides took the streets of Valletta by storm on Sunday 5th May, as they paraded through the capital for their ninth joint annual parade. This year's event holds particular significance to the Scout Association of Malta, which is celebrating its national centenary.

Some 4,500 Scouts and Guides, music blaring and drums booming, brought cheer to the city, which is usually quiet on a Sunday morning.

World AIDS Orphans Day will occur on 7 May. More than 25 million children worldwide have lost one or both parents to AIDS – equivalent to the number of people living in New York, Paris, Rome and Bangkok combined. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 12 million children have been orphaned by the pandemic. In addition to being especially vulnerable to all forms of exploitation, these children face financial difficulties, disease, and stigmatisation.