The first scouts appear in Belgium in 1910 and at the end of that same year, the first scout association, the Boy-Scouts de Belgique, is also founded. Two years after catholic scouting takes root as the Belgian Catholic Scouts, later the Baden-Powell Belgian Boy and Sea Scouts. Catholic guiding dates back to 1915 while the nondenominational guides (Girl Guides de Belgique) are set up in 1919.
The original associations will gradually give birth to the present associations, in a twofold process of linguistical separation into Flemish and Frenchspeaking associations as of 1929 and the merger of some of the scout and guide associations after the second World War.
Today, five guiding and scouting associations are member of Guiding and Scouting in Belgium and therefore affiliated with the two scout and guide world bodies : WAGGGS - the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and WOSM, the World Organisation of the Scout Movement.
The five Scout and Guide associations in Belgium represent some 160,000 members.
Regular joint events demonstrate their common origin, as well as their similar pedagogical programmes and styles of actions. A more recent and very successful one was JAMbe, a national gathering of over 100,000 Scouts and Guides in Brussels celebrating the centenary of Scouting in 2007.
Scouts et Guides Pluralistes (SGP)
38 avenue de la Porte de Hal
B - 1060 Bruxelles
+32 (0)2 539 23 19
Fax : +32 (0)2 539 26 05
www.sgp.be
FOS Open Scouting
Kotrijksesteenweg 639
B - 9000 Gent
+32 (0)9 245 45 86
Fax : +32 (0)9 245 45 88
www.fosopenscouting.be
Les Scouts
rue de Dublin 21
+32 (0)2 508 12 00
Fax : +32(0)2 508 12 01
www.lesscouts.be
Guides Catholiques de Belgique (GCB)
rue Paul Emile Janson 35
B - 1050 Bruxelles
+32 (0)2 538 40 70
Fax : +32 (0)2 537 33 62
www.guides.be
Scouts & Gidsen Vlaanderen
Lange Kievitstraat 74
B - 2018 Antwerpen
+32 (0)3 231 16 20
Fax : +32 (0)3 232 63 92
www.scoutsengidsenvlaanderen.be