First overnight Scout camp held at President’s House

Deputy Chief Scout Ker­wyn Gar­cia host­ed the first overnight Scout camp at Pres­i­dent’s House from March 31 to April 1.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said the camp brought to­geth­er three pa­trols with 24 par­tic­i­pants be­tween ages 12 and 15 from the Scout pro­gramme, in­clud­ing Scouts, Sea Scouts and Air Scouts.

The Scout As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go se­lect­ed par­tic­i­pants who had achieved Scout Stan­dard lev­el.

The camp marked the launch of the Scout­sTT Her­itage Badge Pro­gramme, part of a se­ries of pro­fi­cien­cy badges.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said the badges re­con­nect Scouts with ac­tiv­i­ties from ear­li­er train­ing and link cur­rent mem­bers with past prac­tices.

It said the badges are from a dis­con­tin­ued col­lec­tion and were rein­tro­duced in keep­ing with the Scout Law on thrift.

Par­tic­i­pants worked to­ward the Camp­fire Badge and Ob­serv­er Badge through ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing knot ty­ing, line throw­ing, com­pass ori­en­ta­tion, track­ing and sig­nal­ing.

The pro­gramme in­clud­ed pa­trol lead­er­ship and com­mu­ni­ca­tion ex­er­cis­es.

Scouts al­so toured Pres­i­dent’s House and its grounds as part of the sched­ule.

The camp end­ed with a camp­fire at­tend­ed by First Vice Chair­man Don Po­lo and Deputy Chief Scout Ker­wyn Gar­cia.

Ker­wyn Gar­cia de­liv­ered an ad­dress ti­tled “A Scout Smiles and Whis­tles Un­der All Dif­fi­cul­ties” and urged par­tic­i­pants to ap­ply the mes­sage in their ac­tiv­i­ties.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said the camp forms part of ac­tiv­i­ties to mark the 150th an­niver­sary of Pres­i­dent’s House and the 50th an­niver­sary of the Pres­i­den­cy.

Camp Chief Nikoli Mo­hammed led the ex­er­cise with sup­port from 18 Scout lead­ers, in­clud­ing Mark Ains­ley John.

At the end of the camp, Ker­wyn Gar­cia pre­sent­ed badges to par­tic­i­pants dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said the camp sup­ports youth de­vel­op­ment, lead­er­ship and her­itage aware­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go.