44 scouts joined the staff of Shikharapur Community Learning Center (SCLC) for a camp in Pharping to work together on the Agricultural Learning Resource Center (ALRC), a new centre of SCLC supported by ONGD-FNEL, Luxembourg. This center is essentially a school meant to provide training, support, and resources related to agriculture and entrepreneurship. The first two floors of the center itself already existed when we arrived. The aim of our 10 day camp was to support the Nepali SCLC leaders to add and equip the school with another floor. Despite different backgrounds we were able to run a very successful camp and by the time the scouts had returned to Luxembourg the floor had been completed by our Nepalese friends and is ready to be used by the students.
The camps in Nepal I believe are not only giving us the chance to support the building of physical infrastructure using concrete and shovels but (more importantly?) to exchange with the Nepali – this allows us, so to say, to build intercultural bridges using our minds and hearts.
We were welcomed with open arms by our Nepalese hosts and during the whole stay we were constantly in contact with the local staff and the population more broadly. We would sing, dance, play and cook together. We arrived as foreigners to each other in Pharping and we left as friends.
On my three first trips to Nepal what would strike me the most would be the contrast between Western and Nepalese cultures. On those trips I would often think about how things would be handled differently back in Europe. The communication with our Nepalese hosts on the trip this time was easier and we would work closer together so this time I came back to Europe with a different view and different impressions. I wrote the following on the day that we left the Community and Agricultural Learning Center in Pharping:
Over the last days I have been observing our Luxembourgish scouts and our Nepali hosts. What is it that sets us apart? In Pharping I saw a lot of highly motivated Nepali working alongside our Luxembourg scouts. I saw curiosity, creativity and open-mindedness. We solved all the challenges hand in hand like a team.
The schools looked so (awfully) familiar. I found a notebook in which one of the students was exercising writing in English that could be mine wouldn’t it have been for the Nepali translations on some pages. On another day we played games with the local scouts that reminded me of my days as a teenager in my scout group. Some of our participants realised that they shared a passion for sports with our Nepali hosts and would play football against the local Pharping team (the Luxembourgish tradition of losing the game was followed like in any other country).
We exchanged ideas about our values. I would have a conversation with one of our scouts about his frustration with the current political landscape in Luxembourg only to have a very similar discussion with a Nepali on the next day. Despite this everyone seemed committed to democracy and fearful of autocracy.
The key difference at the end of the day between our Nepali hosts and the Luxembourgish participants is maybe that our participants were born in a very privileged country. By coincidence.
Sharing by
Mr. Charly Feider
Chief of Finance, Scouts Camp 2023
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