The Public Scout and Girl Guide Movement (Arabic: الحركة العامة للكشافة والمرشدات) is the national Scouting organization of Libya. It was founded in 1954, and became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1958 and of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1981. The coeducational Public Scout and Girl Guide Movement has about 18,500 members (13,698 Scouts and 4,766 Guides) as of 2004.
In 1966, Ali Khalifa el-Zaidi (علي خليفة الزائدي) was awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting. Other recipients include Dr. Mansour Mohamed El-Kikhia (د. منصور الكيخيا) in 1981 and in 1983, Dr. Mohamed H. Fhema (د. محمد افحيمه).
The Scout Motto is Kun Musta'idan or كن مستعداً, translating as Be Prepared in Arabic, though the local variant is Wa a'eddou or و أعدوا. The noun for a single Scout is Kashaf or كشاف in Arabic.
Scouts and Guides have a unified headquarters for planning and coordination of policies, but their activities are separate. There is strong Guide/Scout cooperation in planning training courses, youth program, seminars and hosting international activities. Jamborees, leader training courses, seminars and conferences are held throughout the year on the sub-provincial, national and international levels.
The organization has adopted relevant programs in the fields of conservation, Scouting with the handicapped, child health and desert Scouting.
Libyan Scouts are active in the Arab Region as well as the African Region.
The membership badge of the Public Scout and Girl Guide Movement incorporates a palm tree and other agricultural produce.
The Public Scout and Girl Guide Movement escaped the ban on almost any form of independent organisation, when Muammar Gaddafi was ruler of Libya, because of its non-political stance and because Gaddafi was briefly a Scout while growing up in the southern town of Sabha. But in the Libyan civil war Scouts acted as front-line support troops for the anti-Gaddafi forces.
Famous quotes containing the words public, scout, girl, guide and/or movement:
“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“Simone Clouseau: Jacques would make a wonderful father. He has many redeeming qualities, you know.
Sir Charles: Name one.
Simone Clouseau: Oh, he’s kind, loyal, faithful, obedient.
Sir Charles: You’re either married to a boy scout or a dachshund.”
—Blake Edwards (b. 1922)
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)
“For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities—a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces—a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)