Luckyboy Maarman, or Lucky as we know him in Scouting, recently stepped into the role of Regional Commissioner of the Northern Cape Scout Region. After years as a Scout, then as a military man, and more recently as Scout Group Leader for 1st Isago, Lucky is now ready to share his vision of youth empowerment with the entire Region.

“My Scouting journey began when I was a learner with the 1st Sol Plaatje’s School Scout Group. I left Scouting when I joined the military. During that time, I became the proud father of my son Mojalefa and my daughter Jane. During the time I was deployed oversees my children joined Scouting at the 1st Isago Scout Group. When I returned home, I left the military and started working at a mental health institution helping children with mental and physical challenges”, explains Lucky.

“I think I can say that I joined Scouting again when I attended a parent’s meeting”, he says. “Soon after I started attending the parent meetings, I became the Committee Chair. As I had been in the military for 10 years, I thought it would be fun to teach the Scouts discipline by learning the drills. We all had a lot of fun and that made me think of joining in a uniformed role. Soon after this, the role of Scout Group Leader opened up and with the encouragement of my children and some of the parents, I applied. I think my main aim was to achieve my goal of empowering the youth to be respectful to themselves and others, and to have discipline. That is what is most important for me in Scouting, the discipline the Scouts learn, as you cannot achieve anything in life without it. Imagine a household with no discipline, things would be chaotic and fall apart.

When the role of Regional Commissioner (RC) became available I was pursued by our former RC Nolan van der Merwe and my children once again. We did not have a District Commissioner, but the need for RC was bigger. I realised that the change I was trying to bring to the children and youth at 1st Isago was change that is needed all around our Region. In our communities, young people have big problems with drugs, alcohol, crime, and a lack of respect and discipline.

My vision for our Region is clear:

1. We need to instill discipline and respect within our youth and adult members.
2. We also need to give young people healthy, educational, and outdoor programmes that are fun and good for them. We need to keep them busy and give them alternatives to the bad situations they get pulled into in our Region created by drug abuse. These negative situations are preventable. If we can teach young people the Scout Promise, the Scout Law, and the Outdoor Code – so the three fundamentals of Scouting – then we have achieved our goals.

In SCOUTS South Africa we take care of each other, in Scouting you become a better person. In this new position I aim to bring everyone together to empower and enable children and youth to become better leaders, and in turn, better parents”, he concludes.