Welcome to the Afghan Scouts website!
This website supports a network of Afghans and Internationals who are working to revive the Afghan Scout Program.
The Afghan Scouts Program has a 70-year-old history. Inaugurated in 1931 by King Mohammed Nader Khan, the Afghan Scouts joined the International Scouts Association in 1933. Afghan Scouts developed as the country did and in 1957 was organized under the oversight of the Ministry of Education. In 1960 the first troop of Afghan girl scouts was established. By 1977, 36,000 Afghan youth were registered as Afghan Scouts and participating in Afghan Scouts programs all over the country.
In 1978, Russians invaded Afghanistan and in the following year took over the Afghan Scout movement remaking it into a program for young communists. As a part of this program, Afghan Scout youth were expected to report to the government on people who were not supportive of the communist government. This remaking of the Afghan Scout program did tremendous damage to reputation of the program and participating youth and led to the complete disintegration of the program.
In the Bonn conference in 2001, the Afghan Scout program was reinstated in the Ministry of Education but organizers faced great obstacles including the long-memory of communities that were torn apart by the Russian management of the program.
In 2009, two small NGO’s requested permission from the Ministry of Education to start Afghan Scouts programs, PARSA in Kabul and ASRSO in Jalalabad.
Abdullah Rasheed, Regional Director for Asia-Pacific Region of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Started mentoring the PARSA and ASRSO efforts to re-establish the Afghan Scout movement.
PARSA hired two Scout Masters that have been part of the revitalization of the Scout movement since 2001, and began to reconstruct training materials and Afghan Scout programs from materials that came from the 1977. Aga Mustafa, PARSA Senior Scout Trainer has been an Afghan Scout for 40 years.
When PARSA and ASRSO emerged to continue developing Afghan Scout program in partnership with the ministry of education, international scout supporters from around the world joined them. A couple of key supporters were American Eagle scouts from amongst the Coalition Forces who spent as much time as possible in Jalalabad and Kabul working with the Afghan Scout Masters and also working directly with the new Afghan Scout troops. With the international scouts who became dedicated to helping came funding from the US Embassy, and US State Department for foundational support. The US Military funded renovation of a building on the main campus of PARSA which has become the first National Afghan scout Center with the capacity to host training of scoutmasters from around the country. Eagle scouts from the US and Germany sent computers and medical kits for the Afghan Scouts as a part of their final Eagle project. From Japan “Afghanistan-Japan Scout“.
Funding came for uniforms, airfare for international scout trainers to come to Kabul and funding to support Afghan youth to go to international jamborees.
This year, PARSA and ASRSO will be working closely with the Ministry of Education to establish the Afghan Scout Program around the country. Between the two organizations there are 2,000 active Afghan Scouts now. We hope to expand the program by another two thousand in 2012. More importantly, we hope to train Scoutmasters through the Ministry of Education and through other NGO’s so that strong Scout troops can be established in all provinces of Afghanistan.
