To provide a better understanding about the Messengers of Peace (MoP) and to strengthen the Rovering programme at colleges and training institutes, the Scouts and Culture Education Division under the Department of Youth and Sports (DYS) is organizing a workshop on MoP in the capital. MoP is a global scouting initiative, which encourages Scouts to do community service and to share their experiences to the rest of people.
Unlike in schools, the scouting programmes at the colleges and institutes have not been able to keep up its consistency. This time, about 70 rovers from 16 colleges and three training institutes are attending the five-day workshop. The programme is aimed at engaging young people in the colleges and institutes to renew their scout promises.
“Rovers in colleges have not been able to conduct any kind of Rovery programmes because we have not been able to train them, we have not been able to provide apt programmes and activities. And this workshop would be very appropriate for them to get a lot of insights and then take it back to colleges. Once they complete the training, when they go back they will be able to renew their promise to the King, country and people,” Ngawang Gyaltshen, the Deputy Chief Programme Officer of DYS, said.
The MoP programme was introduced for Bhutanese Scouts around 2012 and was functional from 2015 onwards. Prasanna Shrivastava from India is the director of the programme and he worked closely with Bhutan for the introduction of the programme. And this time, he is facilitating the workshop.
“The Messengers of Peace programme gives an opportunity to young people to do good in the society and the community to take peace actions and share that with their peers, with their society and at the global level so that people can learn from each other, people can also spread peace actions not only locally but also globally,” he said.
After the workshop, the young participants are expected to gain in-depth knowledge on the Messengers of Peace, able to identify activities that they can do at their respective communities to identify a challenge and to a create peer leaders to carry out community services.
Bhutan organised its first such programme in 2017 in Tsirang. Scouting programme in Bhutan began in the 1990s. Today, the Bhutan Scouts Association has about sixty thousand members with five different categories.
