Activities for understanding crises

We know that young people may experience grief and bereavement in relation to international crises and will want to explore these within scouting.

Some activities include:

• Choose age-appropriate activities from the activities for bereaved children and young people developed by Winston’s Wish, a childhood bereavement charity in the UK.
• Explore ways to make space for grief and bereavement discussions, using #iwill and Woodcraft Folk’s Growing with Grief toolkit
• Check out our guidance on bereavement support, including links to specialist bereavement support organisations

Peace is all about friendship, harmony and a lack of conflict, but how do we talk about this with our young people?

Some activities include:

• Find activities to explore and promote peace in WOSM’s Dialogue for Peace resources: Choose your activities | World Scouting
• Explore a story of peace from Islam and learn about the black stone, with a balloon-balancing activity.
• Plan an event in your local area to raise awareness of the issues refugees and displaced children face.
• Discover what WOSM (World Organisation of the Scout Movement)  have to say about Peace.
• Explore how it feels to be on the receiving end of differential treatment in Equity spaghetti.

We all know how important it is to look after ourselves, so why not try an activity with wellbeing in mind?

Some activities include:

• Build a wellbeing box, full of mood-boosting items.
• Take a few moments to practice mindfulness techniques.
• Go on a mindfulness walk to connect to the natural world.
• Get stretching and try some animal yoga to help relax.
• Read our blog on how to be kind to yourself.
• Make a calming shaker to help manage stress in Take a shake break.

Try out some of our kindness-based activities to show that a little love and compassion will go a long way to making the world a better place.

Some activities include:

• Create a community display to shout about the power of kindness.
• Learn how to use social media for acts of kindness.
• Challenge the headlines in Kind news to build empathy for people affected by conflict.
• Learn about the bystander effect in Kindness in emergencies.
• Discover positive news with Good deed discovery.
• Make Kindness pebbles.
• Explore how Scouts have always helped in difficult situations. 

We know crises around the world, such as conflict or natural disasters, can be difficult to deal with, but talking about what’s happening can help.

Some activities include:

• Explore what it might feel like to flee with only a few of your possessions in Refugee suitcase.
• Learn about the idea of affinity bias, then see what we all share in common.
• Read our blog about welcoming refugees and displaced children in Scouts.
• Learn about and observe Holocaust memorial day with this art activity.
• Look into a recent climate events with When disaster strikes.
• Choose the items you’d need in an extreme weather event in Disaster stations.

Explore British Red Cross’ free teaching and learning resources to help connect human crisis with human kindness.