From 27 July – 8 August, the 21st World Scout Jamboree brought together tens of thousands of young people interested in global issues. Over 40,000 scouts and 100,000 visitors from 160 countries gathered at Hylands Park, near London.

At the WFP stall at the Jamboree’s ‘Global Development Boulevard’, scouts and visitors were able to play Food Force as part of an activity to learn about hunger issues, and what WFP does to combat them.

For Ipolamin Samuel Isaac, a young Nigerian scout, and for many other visitors from developing countries, it was the first opportunity to experience the fun that can be had playing computer games.

Even for the scouts at the Jamboree familiar with video games, Food Force proved to be a big hit. By the end of the Jamboree, over 1,000 scouts had played the game at the World Food Programme Stall.

Scouts found Food Force engrossing – it was a completely new way to learn about an aid agency’s emergency operations. Friendly competition was encouraged as they tried to get their home nations up onto the Stall’s scoreboard. Those who were successful won copies of the game, with over fifty copies handed out over the course of ten days. Many more scouts planned to download the game from the website when they returned home.

The players truly were an international group with scouts from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas.

These are just some of the virtual aid workers who played through the some of the game’s six missions.

The scouts stayed true to their reputations as able young people, achieving some great scores – don’t be surprised too see some new entries on the website scoreboard over the next few weeks!