Ethiopia and Gambia Scouts: Champions for Gender Equality
Scouts in Ethiopia and Gambia have understood the importance of increasing diverse gender representation and leadership in their National Scout Organisations (NSOs) and have taken exemplary action to make Scouts, girls and boys alike, champions for gender equality. On International Women's Day, we celebrate and support the meaningful membership, participation and leadership of women and girls in our Movement. According to UN Women, increasing women in leadership is key to sustainable development in many areas, including pandemic recovery, fighting climate change and reducing inequality.
The World Scout Foundation funds projects in partnership with the World Organization of the Scout Movement to build greater gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness in Scouting and the world.
The result:
- 200 Scouts trained as champions of change
- 60,000+ people reached through gender equality advocacy
- 500 young people newly enrolled as Scouts
- 2,388 community outreach hours completed through gender equality, diversity and inclusion projects
Thanks to dedicated and inspired team leaders who are trained programme advocates, the project outcomes will continue to grow.
Ethiopia Championing Change
The 2019 Gender Inequality Index (GII), a global measure reflecting inequality in achievement between women and men in three dimensions; reproductive health, empowerment, and the labour market, GII ranks Ethiopia 123 out of 162 countries with a value of 0.508.
Despite relatively strong policies and institutions that support the promotion of gender equality in Ethiopia, unequal power relations between women and men continue to be a significant barrier for women and girls. This causes many poor health outcomes, human rights violations and deep-rooted poverty.
Almost half of the Ethiopian Scouts Association (ESA) members are women and girls. However, at the national decision-making level, they only represent 16%. This realisation led the ESA to implement a national policy and strategy to strengthen gender equality, including training leaders to ensure the work is sustainable.
ESA with support via partner Alwaleed Philanthropies, as part of the Scouts for SDGs Initiative, implemented an eight-month project to enhance the understanding of gender equality within the association. The project has inspired and supported Scouts across Ethiopia to advocate for gender equality, commit to the HeForShe campaign and bring long-lasting solutions for diversity and inclusion country-wide.
Six hundred adult volunteers and 1,024 young people drawn from District Scout Councils received training as champions of change on gender equality. The ESA also promoted the HeForShe Action Kit and rolled out Diversity and Inclusion Guidelines in its its first-ever National Diversity and Inclusion Policy. 32 young people, in selected in schools, have been trained as champions of change on gender equality and diversity and inclusion. These champions then trained 820 other Scout Troop/Patrol Leaders who then worked with one patrol each of 32 school girls and boys. In total, over 26,240 boys and girls have increased awareness, embraced and are now championing gender equality, diversity and inclusion, using the new tools, guidelines and training.
Gambia Scouts Start Journey Towards a Gender-Equal Organisation
In Gambia, gender equality is not only a concern for women and girls. The Gambian Scout Association (TGSA) knew that without the active involvement of men and boys, gender equality could not be achieved. They saw a critical need to create a structured gender equality framework and build the capacity of its volunteers to raise gender equality awareness.
TGSA has kick-started the process to fully embrace gender equality and propel it to a gender-equal organisation with a guiding National Diversity and Inclusion Policy document. The Association is also educating a generation of gender champions for the movement and the wider community and 150 Scout Leaders and Scouts have been trained on gender equality.
Through this project supported by Alwaleed Philanthropies via the Scouts for SDGs Initiative, TGSA has improved the understanding of the HeForShe campaign for volunteers and Scouts. Seven hundred and fifty school club leaders received a 3-day training on the HeForShe action kit to help them live and lead the campaign in schools and at least 300 new commitments to gender equality were registered from adults and young people, while many others implemented activities to address gender equality in their communities.
The newly developed policy will guide the operations and actions of the Association and act as a resource material for both adult volunteers and young people. Additionally, both the Ethiopia and Gambia Scout Associations will continue to implement the activities through integration into their existing Youth Programmes using the Diversity and Inclusion Guidelines, Gender Equality Self Assessment Tool and the HeForShe ToolKit as reference documents.
The impact of these projects will continue growing as Scouts influence change in their schools and communities.
Partnerships for Gender Equality
We can’t build a better world alone. These projects wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of the Foundation's dynamic network of BP Fellows, supporters of Scouting, World Scouting's partners, including Alwaleed Philanthropies, UN Women and all local partners.
The project in Ethiopia was implemented through collaborations with government ministries and bureaus for Education, Peace and Security, Women, Children & Youth, and other youth-focused organisations like Action Aid Ethiopia, Ethiopian Youth Federation and the Young Women’s Christian Association. It was also key to work closely with the 12 Regional Scout Councils to ensure the future sustainability of the project by integrating curriculum on gender equality, diversity and inclusion with regular monitoring.
Content developed with the kind support of the World Scout Bureau Global Support Centre & Africa Support Centre.
Photo credit: Enrique Leon; Ethiopia Scout Association; The Gambia Scout Association
