Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Something to ponder

Here's the deal. Close to where I live, and close to the scout group I'm a leader at, is a small but nevertheless significant Asian community, and by that I mean of middle east descent rather than far east. Where the streets that they are concentrated in are is probably equi distant from three different scout groups, one of them being mine. And not one of these 3 groups has a single member from them and neither, as far as I know, do any of the guide groups in the similar area. They have white kids, black kids, far eastern kids, but no asian kids. And I am genuinely curious as to why?

Is it a religious thing? 2 of the 3 scout groups and 1 of the 3 guide groups in the area are attached to churches. Yet there are still those, including mine that are not.

Is it a class thing? Those streets are, for want of a better and less patronising word, working class. Of the 3 scout groups mine is admittedly pretty middle class, the other 2 aren't though.

Do they even know that we are there? Certainly none of the 3 groups has any great need to actively recruit, we are all fighting kids off with a stick. Other than when we opened a beaver colony 3 years ago we have done know active recruiting in living memory, the others are similar. So why would they be less inclined to know that we are there than the parents of other kids?

Is it a race thing? Are we seen as a "white organisation"? Possibly, but I see black kids turning up, why not Asian kids?

I simply don't know the answer to these questions. I don't even know if the answers matter.

But I'm curious.

2 comments:

Nick Wood said...

I know there was a Group set up in Birmingham that is sponsored by a mosque within the last 18 months or so and I understand they're going really well. If you look in the news section of the Scout Association's site I'm sure you will see all about them.
Maybe Scouting is perceived as 'white' by the Asian community, for example, but it may be worth your District putting out the feelers out to that community to see if there is any interest in Scouting.

YIS

Nick

Putz said...

yeh, instead of a lord baden powell, if it had been a kee chin lae that had been an avid camper, maybe the committment from the asian community would be there...maybe they have better ways to teach leadership skills than scouting??????