National Scout Association of Belarus
Encyclopedia
The National Scout Association of Belarus (Белорусская республиканская скаутская ассоциация, formerly Belaruskaya Natsianalnaya Skautskaya Asatsiyatsia, BNSA) is one of several nationwide Scouting
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....

 associations in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

. It is the body recognized by the World Organization of the Scout Movement
World Organization of the Scout Movement
The World Organization of the Scout Movement is the Non-governmental international organization which governs most national Scout Organizations, with 31 million members. WOSM was established in 1920, and has its headquarters at Geneva, Switzerland...

 from 1998 to 2004 and again from September 5, 2010.

Belarus Scouting history

The first Scout groups were established in Belarus in 1909 while it was part of tsarist Russia, and disbanded by the Soviets in 1922.

Belarusian Scouting was reborn and reorganized in 1989. The National Organization of Russian Scouts
Russian Association of Scouts/Navigators
The Russian Association of Scouts/Navigators , or RAS/N , is the national Scouting federation of Russia, which became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 2004...

 (NORS), based in Australia, is assisting the rebirth of Scouting in Belarus. Belarusian Scouts have regular contacts and exchanges with members of Scouts et Guides de France
Scouts et Guides de France
Scouts et Guides de France is the largest Scouting and Guiding association in France. It was formed on 1 September 2004 from the merger of two Roman Catholic Scouting organizations: the Guides de France and the Scouts de France...

 and the CIS
Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

 Scout associations. Belaruskaya Natsianalnaya Skautskaya Asatsiyatsia, joined the World Organization of the Scout Movement effective March 13, 1998 as the Scout association representing Belarus.

Belarusian Republican Scout Association

World Scouting News, March, 1998, reported "The Belarusian National Scout Association includes more than 7,500 members, both boys and girls, in three branches ranging from 8 to 17 years of age. They are spread all over the country but the majority of members come from the major cities."
"In December 1991, a national coordinating committee was set up under the aegis of WOSM in order to promote the unification of the various Scout Associations which appeared in different parts of the country. Scouting grew steadily with support from the Christian Orthodox Church... as well as the Youth Commission of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus
Politics of Belarus
The politics of Belarus takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, where by the President of Belarus is the head of state. Executive power is exercised by the government, in its top sits a prime minister, appointed by the President...

." In March 1997, as a result of a long process of reconciling divergent nationalistic trends in Scouting, a constituent assembly was held in Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

. This assembly approved the creation of a united National Scout Association.


World Scouting News, further reported "The Belaruskaya Natsianalnaya Skautskaya Asatsiyatsia regularly invites underprivileged children, some of them coming from the Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....

 contaminated areas, to some of their national summer camps."

The Scouts et Guides de France
Scouts et Guides de France
Scouts et Guides de France is the largest Scouting and Guiding association in France. It was formed on 1 September 2004 from the merger of two Roman Catholic Scouting organizations: the Guides de France and the Scouts de France...

 are working with Scouting in Belarus. Guidisme et Scoutisme en Belgique/Gidsen- en Scoutsbeweging in België
Guidisme et Scoutisme en Belgique
Gidsen- en Scoutsbeweging in België or Guidisme et Scoutisme en Belgique is the national Guiding and Scouting federation in Belgium. Scouting in Belgium started in 1911, and Guiding followed in 1915...

 has provided support in the region of the city of Homyel
Homyel
Gomel ; also Homiel, Homel is the administrative center of Gomel Voblast and the second-largest city in Belarus. It has a population of 482,652...

.

The coeducational BNSA had 3,408 members as of 2004. WOSM membership was terminated on March 31, 2004 http://www.scout.org/front/docs/C0407members_e.pdf and http://www.scout.org/front/docs/C0409wsc_e.pdf by the World Scout Committee. WOSM now lists the country as a potential member.

According to http://www.scout.org/wse/conf02docs/confdoc12_e.pdf the BNSA was provisionally suspended for "Non-adherence to the Constitution of the Organization and nonfunctioning as a democratic National Scout Movement" in 2002, after "Complaints (...) received from unrecognised groups within the country about the conduct of the recognised NSO", which led to a report by WOSM's Chairman of the Constitutions Committee, demanding a legitimate general assembly and an independent auditing of its accounts.

According to http://www.scout.org/wsrc/archive/C0209membsusp_e.pdf there was also an earlier provisional suspension for non-payment of membership fees.

The Scout Motto is Bud' Gotov, Be Prepared in Russian, as BNSA does not use the Belarusian language
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...

, Russian is the sole official language. The Russian noun for a single Scout is Скаут.

The membership badge of the Belaruskaya Natsianalnaya Skautskaya Asatsiyatsia incorporates the Patriarchal cross
Patriarchal cross
The Patriarchal cross is a variant of the Christian cross, the religious symbol of Christianity. Similar to the familiar Latin cross, the Patriarchal cross possesses a smaller crossbar placed above the main one, so that both crossbars are near the top. Sometimes the patriarchal cross has a short,...

 of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

an iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

.

See also

  • Scouting in Belarus
    Scouting in Belarus
    The Scout movement in Belarus consists of an unknown number of independent organizations. There are at least five nationwide associations as well as some regional associations...

  • Belarusian Republican Youth Union
    Belarusian Republican Youth Union
    The Belarusian Republican Youth Union , , transliteration: Belorusskij respublikanskij sojuz molodeži ) is a youth organization in Belarus. Its goals are to promote patriotism and to instill moral values into the youth of Belarus, using activities such as camping, sporting events and visiting...

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