One North Vancouver teen travelled to a small town in Madagascar this past summer thanks to an abroad program with Scouts Canada.
Hannah Green, 16, is an Argyle secondary student whose taste for globetrotting took her to Africa to immerse herself in a new culture and lend a hand.
"It was actually just by fluke," she said. "I found out we had a scouts abroad website linked through Scouts Canada and I just checked it out."
Green has been involved with the scouts since 2008 and was part of a group of 15 who travelled to the large village located in a dusty desert. "It was incredible," she noted. "It was nothing like I'd ever seen before, just the way everyone lived - the culture." The group was first trained in Toronto, which was also an opportunity to get to know one another. Then they shipped off to Madagascar with supplies for construction in hand. "We built three classrooms in addition to the three that were built (by scouts) in 2012," Green said.
The addition doubled the attendance capacity for the school. The group also built a water tower to give water to the washroom facility, a composter and a fence around the school's property.
"It was really cool, actually, just because everyone seemed to know each other and there was a really great sense of community," Green said about the contrast between living in a big city and a village. "There were no distractions, because electricity. .. was very limited and not a lot of people can afford to have it. It was really cool to just live simply."
Scouts programs are open to boys, girls and young adults from ages five through 26. It offers international trips, jamborees, and outdoor activities beyond camping such as white water rafting, rock climbing and rappelling. One of its newest pilot programs, STEM, is a science, technology, mathematics and engineering program developed to help foster an interest in those fields. STEM aims to be hands on, involving chemistry, environmental science, math, robotics, and other activities that evaluate the physics of stress, force and acceleration.
As for Green, she said she's enjoyed her time with the scouts.
"I absolutely love it," she said. "I'm a youth member, I'm a cub leader, the area youth commissioner for the North Shore. I love getting involved and giving back."
