How UK Scouts have fundraised to support humanitarian efforts in Palestine

Allia, Leicester

Our community in Leicester always rushes to help with any kind of humanitarian appeal, including international crises and natural disasters. Giving is a huge part of our community and our Muslim identity.

So far, we’ve run lots of events, including a:

• Palestine Awareness Day. Around 120 young people aged between four and 14, and a mix of Scouts and non-Scouts, came along. It was a taster day for the usual kind of activities we run, and we made sure they were hands-on, fun, and interactive, while focusing on Palestine as the theme. We did lots of arts and crafts, including art as activism, food tasting, and a story time.
     
• Families hike. Young people and their families did a sponsored 5km hike in our local park. Some young people had a stall where they sold hot chocolate, and all funds went to the humanitarian appeal.
  
  
• Bazaar. Our very talented young people are great at baking, cooking, and making crafts so they ran their own separate stalls with items they made at home with their families. There was Arabic calligraphy, and little bow ties, woggles, and badges in the Palestinian flag colours, along with donated bric-a-brac and food. We raised an incredible £10,500 at the bazaar.

While supporting the humanitarian efforts, all these activities helped the Scouts earn their Community Impact and Fundraising badges, so they were progressing their own skills for life.

The Scouts in our community take part in fundraising activities in Beavers, so when they become Explorers, they’ve got plenty of experience in supporting communities and raising money for others.

The events were very much youth shaped. When young people started to hear about the conflict, we made sure Scouts was a safe place they could ask questions, and we encouraged them to do so. We felt it was important to address what’s going on.

We then asked our young people, ‘What would you like to learn?’ and ‘Is there anything else you’d like to know?’ in between events, so we could tailor activities to best suit their questions and concerns.

Shabnam, Birmingham

We’re a bunch of Scouts who run our Group in a mosque. We’re very diverse and our members are often affected by international crises, so we always try and address things with our young people. It’s been tough and they’ve had a lot of questions.

We teach them that ‘sharing is caring’, no matter our differences. Regardless of individual opinion, we keep an open mindset and pray for everybody.

Our young people were keen to run a fundraiser themselves, and they chose to donate any funds to Palestine. They brought their own goods in to sell, helped tidy the mosque and we ran a sleepover. They’ve been so involved.

We also did a car wash after Ramadan. Our young people did the fundraiser, then decided where to donate the money. A while ago, they chose to run a fundraiser following the Morocco Earthquake.

7th Goodmayes Explorer Unit, London

On Sunday 17 December 2023, we completed a 26-mile sponsored walk through London to raise emergency funds for the people of Gaza. So far, we’ve raised £6,935.

Twenty-six miles is a marathon and it’s just slightly longer than the length of Gaza itself. Our Explorer Unit intentionally chose to walk this length to transform our sympathy into empathy for the Palestinian people. They’ve had to make a similar but much more dangerous and arduous journey when they were forced to flee their homes in the North, to the South of Gaza.

It was important for the young people of our Explorer Unit to show solidarity with Scouts in Palestine. In particular Yamen Abu Muhammad Kamil, a Palestinian Explorer that some of our leaders met at the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea, who was killed in Gaza on 12 October 2023. We keep Yamen, and his fellow Scouts and leaders who’ve since been killed, in our thoughts and prayers. It’s in memory of these Scouts that our Explorers chose to do their walk.

While our walk was not remotely comparable to the unimaginable adversity faced by the Gazans being forcibly displaced, enduring the physical toll of the walk helped us to reflect on the stark difference between our two journeys.

Our walk was cushioned by comfortable shoes, snacks, lunch, and rest stops. We had the comfort and camaraderie of being on a safe route with friends and the knowledge we would return to our warm safe homes at the end of the day.

This peacefulness felt a deep contrast to what someone would experience while fleeing with whatever remaining belongings they can carry, under heavy bombardment, with no food or water, many travelling alone, having lost their loved ones along with their homes.

As Muslims and Scouts, we feel it’s important for us to advocate for what’s right and to be on the right side of history when it comes to humanity. I encourage other Explorer Units and Scout groups to take on similar challenges that’ll enable us all to reflect on our privilege, voice, and power we have to enact change locally and globally.