Caroline shows her stripes!

Caroline is trailblazing the way, having been selected as a unit leader for the World Scout Jamboree 2023, Korea. Up to 50,000 young people from all over the world will gather for this life changing adventure, which takes place every 4 years in different countries.

Unit 32 is made up of 36 young people, including 9 girls from Girlguiding LaSER. In preparation for a ‘roarsome’ time ahead, they will attend team building events to prepare them for the adventure of a lifetime. We caught up with Caroline to hear all about it, check it out below!

• What are you and unit 32 most looking forward to?
  
  Everyone is excited to meet in person for the first time later this month, to start to bond as a unit. I’m really looking forward to seeing friendships develop and the Young Members supporting and learning from each other. I’m also looking forward to working with my fellow Leaders - we’ve got a really good team and I’m learning lots from them.
  
  
• What was your first meetup like? Is the excitement level high?!
  
  We had a virtual meetup and it was great to see everyone. We had a speed crafting challenge where we made reindeers from foil and a loo roll, and a jamboree quiz. We also learnt that pizza, macaroni cheese, lasagna and garlic bread are the favourite foods of our Young Members, and that we have some amazingly diverse interests and talents amongst us, including ice skating, taekwondo and trains! Everyone seems super excited and we can’t wait to get together in person.
  

• What are your hopes for our members attending the Jamboree? What do you think will impact on them the most/what might they learn?
  
  I’m so excited to see our young members grow in confidence, make new friends within the unit, and for them to meet Guides and Scouts from around the world at the jamboree itself. This will be such a brilliant opportunity for them and will give them transferable skills that will be so helpful in their future lives.
  

• Have you been on an international experience before with Girlguiding? If so where, and what was the most valuable thing you took away from this experience?
  
  I’ve been very lucky to go on three previous internationals, to Armenia on GOLD in 2011, as IST to Roverway in Finland in 2012 and then as a participant at the World Scout Moot in Canada in 2013. I was also due to be a Unit Leader for the 2020 European jamboree in Poland, which was cancelled. My experience on GOLD gave me confidence, independence and self belief that I hadn’t had before, and was the catalyst for lots of subsequent travel adventures! It also taught me to expect the unexpected when you travel!
  

• Something you want to do or try when you are in Korea?
  
  There are so many things I’m excited about. I love exploring cities so I’m looking forward to visiting Seoul. As someone with a sweet tooth I always love sampling different chocolate and sweets when I travel, so I’m also looking forward to trying lots of Korean candy!
  

We’ll be following unit 32’s journey all the way to Korea, so keep posted to hear from our young trailblazers in our next WSJ feature.