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PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE 

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I’ve become a scout in Portugal when I was 10 years old, and I’ve been one over the following 15 years of my life. As a mirror of that personal experience, the Portuguese scouts are the main subject of these photographs showing young territories dominated by the educational spectrum of fantasy.

Portugal’s first scout group was created in 1912 and the country has nowadays more than 80.000 scouts in two major scout associations: CNE (Corpo Nacional de Escutas) and AEP (Associação dos Escoteiros de Portugal). The main difference between each other is that CNE has been founded and supported by the Portuguese Catholic Church, and therefore it only accepts catholic members. Meanwhile AEP is fully independent and welcomes people of any religious belief, even though more than 90% of its members are also known to be catholic.

But in spite of their local differences in uniform and some practises, the basic educational and ideological core of the Portuguese associations is very similar to what scouts do and advocate in the rest of the world.

Counting as many as 40 million members worldwide in all sorts of religious and cultural backgrounds, scouts represent nowadays the largest youth organization in the world. They are meant to serve the constructive ideal of peace and brotherhood among humankind. They teach that through strong educational principles and methods to be applied while in contact with nature. It is that idea of an adventure full of games in the wilderness that usually makes it attractive to many young boys and girls.

By providing that scouts become a playground for life, founded within the structures of fantasy and imagination as means of reaching greater goals. At the same time scout patrols are playing, camping, singing, discussing, swimming, hiking or cooking, they are not only learning and putting in practise basic structures of our competitive group societies as they’re also developing individual skills.

The world of scouts is also embbed in rituals, symbols and codes whose root often come from tribes with whom the movement’s founder Baden Powell has contacted throughout his life.
(read more about it here)

You can see those influences in the uniforms as well as in the imaginary and sometimes bizarre environments and buildings created by the scouts while they’re living their activities, games and ceremonies. In these photographs you’ll see scouts of all ages and they’re part of a long-therm photography project made over the past 6 years in the Portuguese mainland territory.



PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scouts stage and live imaginary worlds during their activities, and adapt their environments to it.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

It's through small groups and contact with nature that scouting educational methods take primarily place.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

The early stage of a 3 floor-high construction that is the home in the following week for this group of scouts.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

The basic landscapes of scout patrol campings usually include not only tents but a kitchen, as well as a table, a recycling area, lines for clothes, deposit for materials. All these temporary constructions are manually made with sisal rope, without any sort of nail.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

One of the male patrols of the original first scout group in Portugal, founded in 1912 in Lisbon. Here they host their 100th aniversary cerimony.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Two scouts work on the construction of a portico to their own camping zone.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Each scout is entitled to his own task within its patrol (the small unit of 5-10 people that you find in every scout group). Here we see the cookers in action. They prepare the meals and do the dishes.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

A finished construction of a group table.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Sea scouts. They have boats and do their activities not only on land, where they camp and have their own constructions, but they are especialists in performing in the water since young age.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Sea scouts. They have boats and do their activities not only on land, where they camp and have their own constructions, but they are especialists in performing in the water since young age.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

A pack of cub sea scouts. They are 6-10 years old. Like all cub scouts, they're mainly playing and starting to learn the basics through different kinds of games both in land and in water.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Rover scouts (18-22 years old) play around in the atlantic beaches of Aveiro, in northern Portugal.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scouts stage and live imaginary worlds during their activities, and adapt their environments to it.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

An improvised kitchen

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

A cub scout leader. Each pack and patrol has its own scream, created by the group itself as means of self-expression and identity among all other scouts.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scout promise cerimony within the original first scout group in Portugal, founded in 1912 in Lisbon. Here they host their 100th aniversary cerimony. In the promise each scout compromises to respect different duties to him/herself as well as to the other. After that, he/she receives the scarf as a symbol of that promise.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Saint George is a patron of all scouts and for them he represents the victory of goodness over evil.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scouts also create imaginary activities and games in cities

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scouts also create imaginary activities and games in cities

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Playing among the remainings of abandoned military equipment

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Playing among the remainings of abandoned military equipment

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

A peculiar portico. Scouts stage and live imaginary worlds during their activities, and adapt their environments to it.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

When on activity, phone usage is usually limited for young scouts. They're usually given one specific time of the day to use it and talk to their parents.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Scouts lay down in a free moment of leisure.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

After breakfast, scouts gather everything and everyone and prepare for a hike.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

A patrol of Explorer scouts (14-18 years old) on hike.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

The ancient and isolated village of Drave, in Portugal, has been abandoned because all of its residents either died or eventually moved out. Since then it has been legally "taken over" by rover scouts who use to all sort of activities, including restoring part of its buildinds. Every summer there is a volunteer campaing to do works on the actual village.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

Shower time.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

The cookers of a patrol of Explorer scouts (14-18 years old) start to prepare dinner.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

When the nigh falls, the warmth and magic of fire is usually replacing electric light. Even for cooking.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

When the nigh falls, the warmth and magic of fire is usually replacing electric light. Even for cooking.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

At night scouts sing around the fire, reflect about their current activities and rest down.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

The 100th anniversary of the original first scout group in Portugal, founded in 1912 in Lisbon.

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

PLAYGROUND FOR LIFE

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