'My son walked miles to grotty shower block with Scouts before 45C evacuation'
A mother has launched a scathing attack against the organisers of the World Scouting Jamboree after her son was forced to wade through knee-high waters and walk for a mile to use a "grotty" and unsanitary bathroom.
The mum, who lives in Glasgow but asked not to be named, said that her 17-year-old son and husband each paid £4,000 to be among the 4,500 British Scouts at the jamboree event in Buan, South Korea.
The so-called "UK Contingent" began arriving at their replacement accommodation in the capital, Seoul on Saturday after the largest single national group pulled out of the event amid concerns over sanitation, food and water supplies, and shelter from the searing heat.
Issues arose last week when a 45C heatwave blasted through the camp, leaving a number of British Scouts in need of urgent medical attention for heat-related illnesses. Though many have blamed the need to evacuate on the freak weather, parents back in the UK say that the camp was not prepared for the 50,000 Scouts that attended.
But before the event started, torrential rain also flooded the camp, which the mother said was not fit for purpose. In a video shared with The Mirror she showed the ankle-high floodwaters her two boys were forced to wade through.
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A video shows the site of the World Scouting Jamboree completely waterlogged just within hours of the kids first arriving (Supplied)
She said the youngsters were also forced to shower in blocks covered only with tarpaulin, which left them feeling as though they couldn't get any privacy (Supplied)The mum said they reported back other dire conditions, suggesting the organisers had failed to provide the basics in terms of sanitation, food, water and power.
She told The Mirror: "My son was telling me that he had to walk for a mile to go to the bathroom and every toilet that he went into didn’t have toilet paper. I mean, that’s a fairly basic standard of expectation”. On arrival at the shower block, her son found the individual cubicles covered only by a tarpaulin, which left many of the youngsters feeling as though they were unable to have any privacy while washing themselves.
The mother criticised the event organisers but praised the "Herculean" efforts of the volunteers and UK Scouting (AFP via Getty Images)And the showers themselves were "grotty", she added. The mum continued: “And they would go for showers and this grey water would be coming up to their ankles with hair and plasters all floating around. There’s an expectation in Scouting that you’re prepared to rough it, right. It’s camping, it’s not a glamorous holiday. But there’s a difference between expecting that you’ll be comfortable to rough it but then basic standards of hygiene being met.
“If it was just that the showers were grotty, or just that the toilets didn’t have toilet paper you could deal with that, right? You could go buy toilet paper, you could skip a shower and just wash with a baby wipe, we’ve all been there. But it was the whole thing, the showers were gross, the toilets were gross, there wasn’t enough food, there wasn’t enough water, there wasn’t power to the site, the site just wasn’t ready for all the Scouts.”
British scouts arrive at a hotel in Seoul on August 5 after leaving the World Scout Jamboree in Buan (YONHAP/AFP via Getty Images)She blasted a number of social media users who had taken to platforms to criticise the children over being too sensitive to the lack of provisions. She said: "The thing that’s been most distressing as a parent is people accuse these kids of being snowflakes without any idea of what it is they’re facing. They’re not pulling out because they don’t have nice soap or whatever, they’re pulling out because they’ve been completely failed by the organisers, who were not honest and up front about the challenges they faced.”
The mum laid the blame at the feet of the event organisers and praised the "Herculean" effort of the global cohort of volunteers and UK Scouting for doing so well in such a difficult situation before adding that she was "gutted" for the young people whose experience "has been ruined" by the organisers.
“That is 50,000 young people who have been on this journey for such a long time, whose entire experience has been ruined by this complete lack of honesty and integrity about the site being ready, combined with factors outside anyone’s control,” she said.
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