Jamboree fiasco wasn't our fault, says Gender Ministry
Published: 24 Apr. 2024, 17:22
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- MICHAEL LEE
- [email protected]
![British scouts prepare to depart the campsite of the World Scout Jamboree in Buan County, North Jeolla on Aug. 5, 2023. The British contingent was the first of 158 national scout delegations to announce its departure from the Jamboree. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/04/24/0e4af56a-3ddf-422c-b0b1-ee2b7e2543bc.jpg)
British scouts prepare to depart the campsite of the World Scout Jamboree in Buan County, North Jeolla on Aug. 5, 2023. The British contingent was the first of 158 national scout delegations to announce its departure from the Jamboree. [YONHAP]
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on Wednesday denied that the Korean government was partly to blame for the disbandment of the 25th World Scout Jamboree that took place in North Jeolla last year.
In a press release, the ministry said claims “that the government’s involvement was a direct cause of the Jamboree’s failure are absolutely not true,” instead attributing responsibility for hosting the event to the Korea Scout Association and World Scout Committee.
The ministry’s statement came in response to a report released by the World Scout Committee last week that examined the reasons behind the failure of the Jamboree.
The report, which was compiled by an independent panel of experts appointed by the international scouting body, said the Korean government and national scout association “failed” to deliver on key promises associated with hosting the Jamboree.
The report further said that the Korea Scout Association at times “deliberately misled” the World Scout Committee on the state of the event’s preparations, but also noted that the association was “sidelined” by the Korean government “on account of the large funding provided by the latter” and that the government became the de facto organizer of the Jamboree “against past practice and guidelines.”
The report attributed Korea’s failure to host “a safe and successful event” to the high annual turnover of government officials working on the event, which it said led to “poor transfer of knowledge” between people assigned to Jamboree preparations.
The panel also said the documents it received suggested “a strong possibility that official planning for the event did not commence until 2020” and that there was “a clear gap between promises made and expectations set by the Host in the bidding phase, as well as updates received during the planning phase, and the reality of the event that was delivered in 2023.”
However, the Gender Equality Ministry claimed that the Korean government was instrumental in “normalizing the event as soon as possible by cooperating with ministries, local government authorities and private companies to resolve problems that occurred in the early stages of the event.”
Approximately 43,000 participants — mainly scouts aged 14 to 18 from 158 countries — descended on Saemangeum, a reclaimed tidal flatland in Buan County, North Jeolla, for the World Scout Jamboree on Aug. 1 last year, only to be evacuated a week later amid snowballing concerns over sanitation, food safety, inadequate shelter, insect- and water-borne diseases and a typhoon.
Photos and comments from participants at the time highlighted a plethora of problems at the Jamboree site, including clogged toilets, rotten or expired food, waterlogged camping grounds and a lack of natural shade as the local mercury soared to as high as 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Hundreds of scouts were forced to seek medical treatment for various ailments, such as heat exhaustion, dehydration and Covid-19.
Although the Korean government attempted to reassure participants by dispatching hundreds of air-conditioned vehicles and additional medical personnel to the stricken site, all scouts were eventually evacuated from the Jamboree campsite ahead of the approach of Typhoon Khanun on Aug. 8.
BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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