“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it”
The Cyprus Scout Association was founded in 1913 and became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1961. CSA has more than 5,000 members and have taken an active part in all aspects of social and cultural life. The Cyprus Scout Association takes an active part in national, regional and international Scout events and have been assisting with the refugee crisis and local humanitarian actions across the island and beyond.
Living with the pandemic
The pandemic was something new for everyone, something new in which we had to upgrade ourselves both personally and through the team, to develop our skills in order to find new methods to adapt to these new circumstances. Our purpose and goal as scouts were to keep in touch. Not to lose touch with our members regardless of the current dynamics. To be able to engage in activities that we would not otherwise do. To formally integrate technology in the way that all organisations do – such as applications – different applications that are existing where we have developed them in a way that works in our own structure. We have made a treasure game through application in which they could take part with their parents in their own time.
THE NEW ERA
It’s something that you come in and adapt to everyone’s daily routine because you can’t require every parent to be available for 2-3 hours on a Saturday to put their child in front of a screen. This one felt quite demanding for us as an extracurricular activity for the reason that the lessons were all online. So, for a minor child (elementary, middle school, high school) is tiring to be on a computer for online education on a Saturday. It was also tiring for the adults who organized this activity which at the end it didn’t even have the impact they expected. So, the activities that we tried to bring in, were activities that had a continuity and a coherence within the weeks. Those activities they could weave into their own time. They could get into these applications to do the activities, which involved different dynamics, or they could get elementary through high school children to participate in the time that they had to devote themselves and in the time that their parents could devote.
THE POSITIVE EFFECT
I think the pandemic was a great cause for immediate growth and that applies to many sectors. Everyone took it on faith that any government, society would be treated negatively either in terms of freedom rights or in terms of anything. Everybody has the right to express their opinion, but we have to see the results, like, Cyprus reached a point where within a year it would develop technologically to the level a very high ever compared before the pandemic.
