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Scouting skills in the jungle
09/12/2011
Neil Robbins, a Cub Scout Leader with 80th Reading, has been putting his Scouting skills to good use in a five-day trek through unmapped jungle.
Neil, 28, was visiting a remote orang-utan sanctuary that he had been raising money for. To get to the Nyaru Menteng reserve in the backwoods of Borneo, he trudged through dense rainforest and sweltering jungle humidity, climbing mountains higher than Ben Nevis.
Skills for life
As an experienced Scouting volunteer, Neil was in his element living on the wild side – something which the rest of his team appreciated.
‘I’ve been involved with Scouting for many years, but a lot of our team were new to outdoor pursuits. Obviously things like treating blisters, packing rucksacks properly and setting up camps are things I do all the time, and my skills were really useful to the group.’
The trip was organised as part of a campaign organised by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, and in order to set off for the jungle, Neil had raised a substantial amount of money to help care for over 1,000 orphaned and injured orang-utans.
Inspiring young people
During his trip, Neil met a number of local schoolchildren from rural Borneo, and his stories of their lives in the jungle have struck a chord with his own Cub Pack back in Reading.
Neil’s Pack was understandably very excited about his trip, and since he reported back to them, the Cubs have been trying to get together a package to send out to their counterparts in South East Asia.
‘One of the Cubs said to me that it’s really made him think about how lucky he is, which is quite a thing to hear from an eight year-old.’
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