Wednesday, August 15, 2007 BSP attends 100th world jamboree
THE contingent of Filipino boy scouts and adult leaders returned euphoric and triumphant after attending the 21st World Scout Jamboree in Hyland Park, Sussex, England recently.
“There is nothing like it in the world,” said Jose Paolo Delgado, one of the leaders of the contingent.
The jamboree was attended by 40,000 young people from 155 countries and was in commemoration of the 100th year of the founding of the movement by a British army officer Lord Robert Baden Powell.
One highlight of the celebration was the symbolic return to the site of the first camp on Brownsea Island off the southern coast of England where Powell brought 20 boys and launched the movement on Aug. 1, 1907.
Two scouts from each of the 155 countries, including the Philippines, attended the sunrise ceremony last Aug. 1.
The Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP) is the third largest member of the scouting movement with 2.2 million boys and girls scouts. The United States and Indonesia top the list.
Support
The Philippine contingent was supported by the business community, represented by the Coca-Cola Patrol, Sime Darby Patrol and a Pascual Laboratories Patrol. The Karakol Patrol, sent by the Makati (Boy Scout) Council, the Eagle Patrol, the Durian Patrol and the Operations One Patrol were also present.
To Jose Paolo Delgado and his father, Eduardo, seeing the World Scout flag made them sentimental.
The logo of the World Scouting Movement (WOSM) was designed and adopted when Eduardo’s father, the late ambassador Antonio Delgado, was the chairman of WOSM, in 1971-1973.
Antonio, as a young scout in 1934, attended the 4th World Jamboree in Budapest, the first one attended by Filipino scouts.
