A Network Scout who was invested into the Bedford Pillage Scout Unit last year at the Danish Viking Camp in Willington is planning an expedition to Outer Mongolia with 65 other Scouts from around the UK. The three-week, 6000-mile trip is part of a UNICEF and Save the Children project to bring aid to the feral street children of the capital Ulaan Baator.

Edwin Jenns 23, has been a Scout for 17 years since joining Beaver Scouts in Sharnbrook at the age of six. For the last two years he has been training to become a Queen’s Scout. The expedition to Outer Mongolia is the final stage of his training and he will then be qualified to join the select band who have made it to the top of the Scout Movement.

Edwin says, “As part of my award I have been leading teenage Explorer Scouts from Ouse Valley in all manner of challenging activities. We have a great time.  But I also spend time on Network Scout projects. Last year I met up with Danish and Italian Scouts at the Bedford River Festival to help recruit new adult volunteers.

“The expedition is my most ambitious challenge yet. With a large group of other Network Scouts we fly out to Beijing in July Then it’s onto the transmongolian express and a train journey along part of the Great Wall of China to the Mongolian capital. It’s a 6,300-mile trip that will take us the best part of a day.

“In Mongolia we will team up with local Scouts and contacts from UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and Save the Children to bring a programme of Scouting activities to the area’s street children.

“There will be time to join with the nomadic horsemen of the region, live in their felt tents made from camel’s hair and learn their culture and customs. Then, before we leave, we hope to climb the nearby snow covered Mt Bogd Klan Uul towering 7,400 feet above the Gobi Desert to the south.”

There are few Scouts in the county who will match Edwin’s wide ranging knowledge and experience. He will join an elite club of just three Queen’s Scout Award winners in the county in the last five years. It will give him an automatic ticket to next year’s Windsor parade and a chance to meet the Queen.

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