By C M Paul
Nashik, Jan. 4, 2019: Some 4,500 plus scouts and guides from all over India celebrated New Year with 11 types of adventure sports.
They are the participants of a five-day national jamboree christened Boscoree that began at Nashik, a holy city in Maharashtra, on December 30.
“This adventure sports at the 13th National Boscoree 2018 is designed to evaluate and build up harmony, resilience, common sense, kindness and an independence of mind among the young scouts and guides” program coordinator Father Glenford Lowe said.
Explaining the place of adventure sports in building harmony, character and team spirit Fr Lowe added, “The question what really makes the difference when it comes to making a success of life, resulted in us deciding to do something about one thing: character. Grit, resilience, determination through outdoor activities frees the mind and liberates the spirit. Moreover it helps develop camaraderie of sorts, allowing the young to live harmonious lives.”
The designer of adventure sports Zahid Qureshi is the only Indian to be certified as official Bungee Jump Master from the Bungee Consultant International, Canada, and a professionally certified mountain climbing expert apart from being the youngest jump master in India.
Bungee jumping is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord from a building, bridge or crane. It is also possible to jump from a movable object, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter, that has the ability to hover above the ground.
The thrill comes from the free-falling and the rebound as the cord stretches and the jumper flies upwards again as the cord recoils, and continues to oscillate up and down until all the kinetic energy is dissipated.
Qureshi designed and set up the ‘adventure games zone’ consisting of Tarzan swing, vertical rope ladder, swing crossing, horizontal ladder, log balancing, plank walk, sloth walk, bamboo wall net climbing, monkey crawl, commando bridge and tyre jumping ensured that the young guns had an exciting adventure of fun, frolic and grit.
Qureshi, the adventure enthusiast and expert –trainer quipped, “Character training is nothing new. It is exactly what Robert Baden-Powell wanted scouting to be. For him, it was of more value than any other attribute in life, and that can happen very well with these theme adventure and extreme sports zones.”
After the adventure, the evening was dedicated to a reflective and introspective session on ‘harmony’. As part of a colorful activity during the reflection time, the scouts and guides traced their palms on a piece of paper after which they asked five others from other patrols/schools to trace their palms over theirs.
The new year day concluded with the colorful array of dazzling cultural displays, as witness to the harmony in diversity of Indian cultural attire through song and dance.
Boscoree ending January 3 has 143 scout and guides units consisting of 2,057 Scouts and 1,549 guides, 165 scout masters and 137 guide captains, 107 Salesian priests and Brothers, 43 Salesian Sisters and 477 guests, dignitaries and event organizers from 17 groups representing the scouts and guides from the different Don Bosco and Auxilium provinces in India and Nepal.