As 40,000 scouts from around the world set up camp in Chelmsford, UK to mark 100 years of scouting, the UN Refugee Agency is also putting up its own tent to teach the young delegates how they can help people who have had to make more dangerous journeys.

"Scouts have a long tradition of helping UNHCR help refugees. We're delighted to once again be part of the international jamboree and have launched a special website – www.unhcr.org/scouts – to celebrate the centenary," says Bemma Donkoh, Representative for UNHCR in the UK.

"We hope scouts will enjoy what we've got in store and go away equipped and enthused to do what they can to help refugees wherever they may be," Donkoh adds, urging participants to log back on after the event so they can download jamboree games and share the fun with their friends, fellow scouts and classmates.

UNHCR has teamed up with local organization, STAR (Student Action for Refugees) to give scouts a multi-media experience of the various stages in a refugee's journey.

Over the next ten days, jamboree delegates will be treated to a sneak preview of 'Against All Odds' – UNHCR's online game to be released in English and French later this year, in which players must make crucial decisions as they flee their homes and try to find a way to safety.

Flight is also the theme of the 'Journey to Safety' workshop but it won't be done from the comfort of a computer desk. STAR's popular adaptation of UNHCR's Passages game will have scouts on the run as they try to overcome physical obstacles and negotiate with officials in order to cross borders and claim asylum.

And it doesn't end there. Scouts will literally have to juggle food, housing and other basic needs in STAR's balloon game designed to illustrate how difficult life can be for someone starting afresh in a foreign land.

A handprint campaign is the final step where scouts can show their support for refugee rights and take away cards pointing them in the direction of UNHCR's 'scout site'. The site will have ideas on how they can get involved locally to help refugees once safely back in their own countries after the jamboree.

Scouts' support to UNHCR's global operations to protect and assist displaced persons pre-dates the Agency's official Memorandum of Understanding with the World Scout Association signed in 1995. To this day, scouts have helped UNHCR in a variety of situations, from building emergency shelters for refugees arriving in Benin from Togo, to the teaching of refugee rights to school children in Armenia.

In the UK, STAR – now a national network of 35 university student groups and several thousand young people who volunteer with and advocate for refugees – was the brainchild of a student who in 1992 wanted to do more to help, after reading UNHCR's Refugees magazine.

27 July 2007