Jamboree Unit Leader

I led a unit of 40 teenagers to the 25th World Scout Jamboree in South Korea, a gathering of 40,000 scouts from across the globe. Getting there took two years of preparation: eight training camps, budgeting, safeguarding, and building a group of strangers into a unit that could look after itself and each other on the other side of the world.

None of that prepared me for the actual site. Partway through the Jamboree, a typhoon forced a full-site evacuation of tens of thousands of people. With almost no notice, I had to get 40 teenagers safely off site and plan an entire week's replacement itinerary in Seoul from scratch, negotiating transport, food, and budget under real time pressure. It's the closest thing I've had to running an emergency response programme, and it taught me more about staying calm and making fast, correct decisions than anything else I've done.