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.

Les gouvernements devraient reconnaître le bénévolat comme une activité extra-professionnelle selon un rapport sur le bénévolat des jeunes adultes publié cette semaine au Royaume-Uni.

The Morgan Inquiry, soutenu par l’Association des scouts du Royaume-Uni, propose des recommandations comme celle de donner un jour férié flexible pour encourager le bénévolat, de créer un système de brevet standardisé qui reconnaitrait les compétences acquises dans le bénévolat et ainsi rendre le bénévolat plus attractif.

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 mai 2008 - Les bénévoles qui consacrent beaucoup de leur temps à travailler pour la préservation de l’environnement viennent de recevoir du renforcement de taille avec l’annonce, aujourd’hui, que jusqu’à 28 millions de scouts de 156 pays prendront part à des activités écologiques réalisées au niveau local, dans le cadre d’une nouvelle alliance avec la campagne mondiale Nettoyons la Terre (Clean Up the World).

Cette nouvelle relation a été annoncée aujourd’hui en Australie par le porte-parole australien pour l'assimilation sociale et le secteur bénévole, Mme la Sénatrice Ursula Stephens ; le Président et Fondateur de Nettoyons la Terre, M. Ian Kiernan AO* ; et le directeur général du scoutisme australien M. John Ravenhall AM*. Cette relation augmentera de beaucoup la capacité du bénévolat de Nettoyons la Terre qui, déjà chaque année, mobilise jusqu’à 35 millions de personnes.

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.