A year after appointing a chief diversity officer, Massachusetts' largest Boy Scouts of America Council is opening new pathways for inner city youth.
The latest example is the creation of Scouts BSA Troop 906, formed last September and headquartered at Orchard Gardens Pilot School in Roxbury. The K-8 school, which shares its name with a public housing development a few blocks away, has a student body that's half African-American and 42 percent Hispanic. Troop 906 is one of only two majority-minority troops in eastern Massachusetts — the other is an inactive one in Dorchester.
“Scouting across the board has been a white, middle-class program for a long time,” said Komba Lamina, chief diversity officer and urban scouting and exploring executive of the Spirit of Adventure council, which serves 77 towns and cities in eastern Massachusetts. “What we’re doing here in eastern [Massachusetts] is really to go back out there and let folks know scouting welcomes you.”
About 20 scouts, including three girls — Scouts BSA, which is for children ages 11-17, began accepting girls when it changed its name from the Boy Scouts in February — meet at the Orchard Gardens school. Many of the scouts are from immigrant families. Troop 906 was organized through Beacon of Freedom, an outreach initiative focused on the region's urban areas that seeks to engage children and families in scouting, most for the first time, according to its website.
“I wanted to learn new things like how to help people, how to cook and swim,” said Wagner Baessa-Landin, an eighth grader who was born in Portugal and did not know much about Boy Scouts before a school official suggested he join. Baessa-Landin, 13, is now a patrol leader. Although he hasn’t learned how to swim, he is learning other things.
“I learned how to cook outside and work as a team with my friends,” Baessa-Landin said when asked about his favorite newly-acquired skill.
Paulo Dacosta, 12, said with a giggle after a lesson about first aid and the Heimlich maneuver, “I learned how to save myself if I’m choking."
Other scouts name archery and rope-tying as new skills they've acquired, as well as less tangible lessons about character and values.
Adult leader Nicholas Kerpan has been involved with the troop since it was chartered. He explained Beacon of Freedom’s outreach as a matter of “getting access to all the cool things you can do in scouting out to people without excluding them because they don’t have the time or the money to do it themselves.”
Kerpan, 30, and other scouting officials said when it comes to forming inner-city troops like Troop 906, limited family resources and little knowledge of scouting can be barriers. Beacon of Freedom has been working to overcome those obstacles by hiring staff and lending financial assistance to the troop.
"The biggest thing we had to do was let people know what it was and pick a time that’s convenient for them to meet,” Kerpan said. “From then, it's just been a matter of working together with the teachers and the other adult leaders and the scouts themselves to figure out what exactly a scout troop looks like and what their roles and responsibilities are."
The girls in the troop weren’t available for interviews, but officials said their inclusion hasn’t brought challenges.
The troop’s unusual demographics, however, are forcing Beacon of Freedom to confront stereotypes and face other cultural challenges.
Leaders reject the notion that both the national Boy Scouts of America — which has retained its original name — and the Spirit of Adventure's inclusive efforts are solely aimed at boosting its dwindling membership. Although numbers have been on the decline for the last 10 years, Chief Diversity Officer Komba Lamina said scouting instead has to go after new markets to stay relevant as the country's demographics change.
Lamina acknowledged the organization hasn't done the best job of being inclusive in the past. He added that in communities with large immigrant populations like Roxbury and Dorchester, parents from other countries have different ideas about scouting, or may not have even heard of Boy Scouts of America.
"A while back, I had a volunteer that actually mentioned that in some countries, especially in Latin America, they look at scouting as a bridge to get into the military,” Lamina said. “The advice was, 'Don't use a uniform right at first, because you want to be able to explain to parents and let them know that this is not what this is.'"
Even though the scouting movement began with a British war hero's publication of a soldier's field manual, the present-day Boy Scouts of America says its only connection to the military is shared values.
“The BSA has a proud history of supporting America’s service members and veterans. Our youth members learn the importance of duty to country and honoring the people who serve our nation as part of the values outlined in the Scout Oath and Law," the organization said in a statement to WGBH News. “It is important to note that while the BSA does teach the importance of honoring members of our military, it is a completely independent organization, and the BSA does not provide a recruitment platform for the U.S. armed forces.”
A spokesperson for the World Organization of the Scout Movement, which connects 170 national groups around the globe, expressed similar sentiments to WGBH News.
Despite the cultural gaps in perception, Lamina said the next phase in solidifying the troop is getting parents to run the program, a longer-term goal.
"Folks are not just gonna come in and say, 'Oh yeah, this is good. This is working out, let me just jump into it,’” he acknowledged. “So you first have to build that trust, that's one, and also establish consistency, so that folks know that you're there stay."
Meanwhile, some scouts from Troop 906 are already contemplating the intangible lessons they’re learning and thinking about higher roles within the organization.
"I want to be a scout master, then I can do that, like I will learn how to do all the stuff and help kids out and like, I will be bossy some times, but I will be fun at the same time," said Baessa-Landin.
When asked what he’s learning as a scout leader, Lucio DePina, 13, said, “I have to be trustworthy, and I have to help my friends and be kind. I do it because I love it. It’s fun, and I like it.”
