An interesting story on Scouts in Canada, read complete article at Calgary Sun.
Troops in many Canadian cities are experiencing a growth boom among ethnic children
If Scouting needs a new poster child, Asjad is prepared.
While the sun sets over an industrial quarter of East Toronto, 11-year-old Asjad Majeed and fellow members of the 163 Islamic Institute of Toronto Scout Group, huddle against a cooling breeze. Their campsite is at the top end of a parking lot, out back of the large institute in the community of Malvern. Circled by prairies of urban sprawl, lapping against mountains of concrete, the city kids are — as eggs fry on a nearby camp stove and rope is cut for knot tying — learning basics of surviving and thriving in Canada.
“They teach you cool tricks,” explains Asjad. “Like my uncle learned a very long time ago (in the 1980s) … in Pakistan.”
Canadian Scouting is going through a growth boom among ethnic children, led by the Chinese and Muslim communities.
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Those who know Scout lore, remind people that the movement’s founder, Lord Baden-Powell concluded: “Scouting is a game with a purpose.”
Munir Javraj found that purpose in Africa, as a Cub, decades ago. When his family arrived in Alberta in the 1980s, they didn’t speak English. But Munir shared a common language with Canadian kids.
“Muslim, Jewish or Hindu, we share the same values as Scouts,” says Munir, a 38- year-old, Calgary-based manager at Suncor Energy Inc.
Today, he’s also a leader in the 203rd Calgary Ismaili Scouts, and his five-year-old son has started Beavers — just as Munir did as a youngster in Tanzania.
“Scouting is about becoming a global citizen,” says Munir.
Ismailimail 