THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT
The Boy Scout Movement has its roots in the youth and army experiences of General Sir Robert Baden-Powell (later Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell) and, in particular, those he had in Southern Africa.
Baden-Powell's first association with Southern Africa was in 1884 when he did reconnaissance in the Drakensberg. He returned in 1888 for the campaign against Dinizulu, and in 1896 for the Matabele War. In 1899, during the Anglo-Boer War, Baden-Powell was the commanding officer of the British Forces in Mafeking (now Mafikeng, capital of Bophuthatswana), and it was largely due to his ingenuity and practical approach that the town was held during the siege, which lasted for seven months.
The Siege of Mafeking had an influence on the founding of the Boy Scout Movement since it was there that Baden-Powell realized how boys rose to responsibility when it was entrusted to them. During the Siege, boys from the age of nine years upwards were organized by Lord Edward Cecil into the Mafeking Cadet Corps and they took over all manner of duties such as message-carrying and orderly work in the field kitchen & anything that could release trained men for combat duties. A picture of a cadet in uniform, with his bicycle, appears on one of the special Mafeking postage stamps issued during the Siege. The success of the Mafeking Cadet Corps made a lasting impression on Gen. Baden-Powell. Upon his return to England, he was honoured as the hero of Mafekirig, with the result that boys with a yearning for adventure approached him for advice. This decided him to try out his ideas on scouting for boys at an experimental camp on Brownsea Island in 1907. The next year the results of his experiment were published under the title 'Scouting for Boys' and the book became an instant best-seller. Baden-Powell 's experiment had proved a great success and the greatest youth movement in the world was born. Today, the Boy Scout Movement has some 14 million members living in 110 countries.
As early as March 1908, only months after the Brownsea Island camp, Scout Troops were functioning in Southern Africa. The Boy Scouts in Bophuthatswana are proud of their association with the origins of the Movement and their membership of an organization whose aim is to provide opportunities for developing those qualities of character that make the good citizen * honesty, self-discipline, self-reliance, and the will and ability to build a nation through service to the community.
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