Winter Scout camps for Ukraine: Connecting communities

Thanks to your donations to the Ukraine Appeal last year, winter Scout camps were run with Uact NSOs in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia for Ukrainian refugee children. In total, 8,200 Ukrainian children and young people have participated in this year’s winter activities. The camps ran in  January, February and March 2023, giving Scouts from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia the opportunity to deliver different programmes that supported Ukrainian refugee children to integrate into the Scout groups of their local communities. 

Camps were modelled on the successful Scout camps held in the summer months. The Camp programs were based on the capacity of the Scouts leaders and the needs of the Scout members and Ukrainian children, and the camps had different durations.  

Lithuania

Winter camps have been delivered over the weekends as two-day long camps in which 327 Ukrainian children have participated in outdoor activities, received training and tips & tricks on first aid provision or were offered the space for personal reflection, sharing emotions, and speaking about their individual situations.

Poland 

7,355 Ukranian children have been welcomed to the winter camps of up to 10 days. The different NSO local groups organised a mixture of indoor and outdoor activities where children were challenged to learn about the Ukrainian culture and language, participate in artistic and musical activities or develop their knowledge and capacities in science. The winter camps in Poland had different concepts with themes such as magic, creativity, mystery camps (with Enola Holmes as the main character), knights, science, and many more.

Latvia

150 Ukrainian children have participated in one-day-long winter camp activities where the Latvian Scouts and the Ukrainian refugee children, regardless of whether they had been previously involved in Scouts activities or not, took part in outdoor activities, such as hikes or attended workshops on a wide variety of topics such as cooking, language classes, sports or handcrafts. 

Connecting Communities

Winter camps, like those in summer, are organised following Scouting's non-formal education programme, using skill-building activities. NSO learnings during the summer camps identified that mixed groups of children (Ukrainian and national children) who attended the camps had better outcomes. This facilitated Ukrainian children’s integration and their approach to Scouting while building trust relationships among children participating and creating space for Ukrainian children to feel secure. Scout leaders noticed an improvement in the participation of Ukrainian children in Scout camps due to the summer camps' positive impact on their perception and experience of Scouting and Scout activities. The Scout leaders reported that learnings from the summer camp programme contributed to more easily organised camps. A key contributor to this success is the continuous efforts the Scout groups have put on their local communities to connect with Ukrainian refugees, build confident relationships and integrate them with their peers.

A positive sense of self-worth.

Psychological well-being and support is a resource highly demanded in the camps, especially in Poland. The leaders’ reflections on their experiences have raised awareness around the need to offer more mental health support and psychological assistance to Ukrainian children, specifically in camps close to the year-of-the-war dates. The Polish NSO has begun mainstreaming psychological assistance across the different activities that have formed the UAct project’s response in the country, including the winter camps. Foreseeing the risks that could affect the development of the winter camps, the NSO in Poland adjusted their activities and programmes to offer extra support to the Ukrainian children attending, as well as to the Scout leaders, by saving the space for group support activities or exercises involving speaking and identifying emotions. 

During sessions focused on mental health and psychological well-being, the Scout leaders organised activities to help children and young people deal with stress and trauma, to have the opportunity to speak with people who have experienced war and its consequences and to talk about war with young people and children. By encouraging and supporting the integration of Ukrainian children and young people in the winter camps, Scouts have leveraged the positive sense of self-worth and confidence by:

• Encouraging creativity and skills – helping each other, working together and doing other service projects throughout the week. The educational programme delivered at the winter camps is focused on developing personal skills, strengthening group cooperation and peer-to-peer problem-solving methodologies. This year, the winter camps’ programme also included different sessions with themes such as; humanitarian action, diversity, inclusion, and integration. 
• Fostering Cultural exchange — consciously adapting winter camps programmes to encourage cultural exchange among the Ukrainian and local children; this has been done through different strategies; for example, in Poland each camp had to include in its programme at least one full day dedicated to Poland’s and Ukraine’s culture, history, traditions and other activities that bring both countries closer. 

All programme elements are prepared and executed following Scout’s non-formal education methods. 
Activities delivered over the winter camps are: 
•Hiking  •Humanitarian response activities and workshops  •Diversity and Inclusion workshops  •Integration workshops  •Polish culture and history workshops  •Handcrafts •Carol singing  •Cultural & farm visits  •Dancing  •Jewelry making •Instrument playing •Sledding and skating  •City games  •Recreation and sports 

In preparation for delivering these camps, the Scout leaders and volunteers attended different Scout training sessions on topics such as; how to stay “Safe from Harm,” how to develop and implement child protection policies and how to identify and provide psychological support. 

Impact of Scouting 
Since April 2022, Scouts have supported 1,064,624 Ukrainian individuals, 465,950 of whom were children and young people.  

Over 285,048 Ukrainian young people have been supported through Scouting’s Educational Methods since the beginning of the UAct project in April 2022, through the activities facilitated by a total of 30,663Scout volunteers and team members.

Make a difference today.

Help Scouts do more and donate to the United for Ukraine: Summer Scout Camps – click here to give. 

Content: With thanks to Uact: Unicef and the World Organization of the Scout Movement