Figure 1.--This was a Scout troop in Malaya during 1956 before Malaysian independence. The boys look to be ethnic Chinese which is an important minority group in the country. We are not sure where the photogeaph was taken, perhaps Menglombu. Singapore of course is largely Chinese. The occasion was Children's Day. Click on the image for more information, but you need to speak Chinese.

Scouts are the most important youth movement in Malysia. The Malaysian Scout association is the Persekutuan Pengakap Malaysia (The Scouts Association of Malaysia). It includes both boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 17. Persekutuan Pengakap Malaysia (PPM) is part of the global Scouting movement and national member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). It is the only uniformed body in Malaysia to have been established and officially regulated by an act of Parliament through the Scouts Association Of Malaysia (Incorporation) Act 1968. The history of Scouting in Malaysia is a little complicated becuse Scouting was founded in the the country while it was still the British colon of Malaya. The colony was not a centalized colony, but a federation. And it included Singapore which is now an independent country. Scouting first appeared in in Singapore where the British presence was strongest (1908), but was not officially founded until 2 years late (1910). Scoutmaster Frank Cooper Sands, newly arrived in Singapore from Nottingham, organized two Boy Scout troops in Singapore for the children of the British colonists. Scouting proved popular and spread to other parts of the Straits Settlements and what were to become the states of Malaysia. Sands spent the next 40 years working with rhe Scout movement. He is considered to be the "Father of Malayan Scouting".