Our programmes & engagement

MSA's engagement runs on three tracks — one about peace, one about sustainable development, and one about the island itself. All three are open to any member.

Messenger of Peace

Community service that builds peace, logged into a worldwide total. Open to every section, at any scale.

Scout of the World Award

WOSM's award for 15- to 26-year-olds, built around a real community project and tied to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

A Scout A Tree

One Scout, one tree — our own response to an island that has lost almost all of its native forest.

Two of the three are WOSM programmes, open to MSA members because Mauritius has belonged to the World Organization of the Scout Movement since 1971. The third is ours.

Messengers of Peace is a global initiative of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). It was launched on 28 September 2011 in Saudi Arabia by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and it put a name to something Scouts were already doing: practical, unshowy work that makes a community easier to live in.

MSA has been a member of WOSM since 1971, so the initiative is open to every Scout in Mauritius and Rodrigues.

What counts as peace work

Peace here means more than the absence of conflict. WOSM groups Messengers of Peace projects into five areas:

• Peace-building and dialogue — bringing communities into conversation with each other
• Diversity and inclusion — making Scouting reachable for everyone
• Humanitarian action — responding when disaster or hardship hits
• Culture and heritage — looking after what a community holds in common
• Civic engagement — taking part in the life of the country

A beach clean-up, an afternoon spent with elderly neighbours, an interfaith gathering and a cyclone relief collection all count.

How a Scout takes part

1. Run a service project. Anything your group does for its community qualifies. It does not have to be large.
2. Log the hours on WOSM's platform, so the work joins the global total.
3. Wear the badge. Scouts who complete a service project can wear the Messengers of Peace badge.

Messengers of Peace Heroes Award

The Heroes Award recognises young people aged 11 to 26 whose service stands out. You cannot nominate yourself — someone else has to put your name forward. The project must have been completed within the previous 24 months, and it must contribute to at least one of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

WOSM reports more than 16 million community projects and actions delivered through Messengers of Peace worldwide since 2011.

Interested? Speak to your Group Scout Leader, or get in touch with MSA.

The Scouts of the World Award is WOSM's flagship award for older youth. It was introduced on 22 April 2005 to give young people a structured way to take on a problem they can actually see around them, rather than one described to them in a training room.

It is open to anyone aged 15 to 26 — including young people who are not Scouts.

Three fields of action

Every project sits in one of three fields:

Whichever field you choose, the project has to contribute to at least one of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals, locally or nationally.

Two stages

1. Scouts of the World Discovery — at least 21 hours. A course where you examine an issue in your own community: what causes it, who it affects, and what could realistically be done about it. You come out of it with a plan rather than an opinion.

2. Scouts of the World Voluntary Service — at least 80 hours. You carry that plan out, including the planning time. This is the part that makes the award worth holding.

After the award

The award is presented by MSA as the national Scout organisation, and holders join the global Scouts of the World Network.

If you are 15 or over and want to start, contact MSA and ask about the next Discovery course.

A Scout A Tree is MSA's environmental commitment, and the name is the whole idea: one Scout, one tree.

Why it matters here

Mauritius has one of the most threatened floras on earth. Less than 2% of the island's original native forest survives — around 2,600 hectares of reasonable-quality native forest — and the IUCN ranks Mauritian flora as the third most endangered in the world. What is left is under continuing pressure from invasive species.

That makes planting a tree in Mauritius a different act from planting one elsewhere. Which species goes into the ground matters as much as how many do.

Service that counts twice

Planting is not a separate hobby from the rest of Scouting. It sits squarely in the Environment field of the Scout of the World Award, and the hours can be logged towards Messenger of Peace. It contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 13, climate action, and Goal 15, life on land.

Getting your group involved

Groups planning a planting can contact MSA to be put in touch with the Program Commission.

Scouting in Mauritius does not work alone. MSA works with government ministries, national bodies and the wider Scout movement — on youth policy, on child protection and safeguarding, on the environment, and on the training that keeps our leaders qualified.

National partners

In world Scouting

MSA has been a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement since 1971 and belongs to its Africa Scout Region. That membership is what gives Mauritian Scouts access to Messenger of Peace, the Scout of the World Award, World Scout Jamborees and Moots, and the international training framework our leaders are certified against.

Interested in working with MSA? Get in touch.