The Scouts have announced Dwayne Fields, the first black Briton to reach the north pole, as the UK’s new chief scout.
Fields, a TV presenter, explorer and naturalist, is the first person of colour to lead the organisation, which has half a million young members and adult volunteers.
He will succeed the TV star Bear Grylls, who was appointed in 2009, aged 34, making him the youngest chief scout at the time.
The Scouts said a key part of Fields’ mission would be to attract new volunteers, especially in communities new to the group.
Fields, who has been an ambassador for the Scouts since 2017, will be visiting these areas and “encouraging and inspiring teams to grow the movement”.
Fields was formally invested as chief scout on Thursday at Scout Park in north-east London, where he spent time in Cub scouts as a child.
He said: “Scouts helped shape who I am today and I hope my story will encourage others to join and achieve their dreams.
“My volunteer leaders believed in me as a young person and taught me to believe in myself. They showed me I could do anything I put my mind to and others would help me along the way.
“Now I want a new generation to learn the skills for life, friendship and belonging I felt when I needed them most. I want to show that the outdoors is a place for all of us to be at our best and truly open to all.”
His appointment comes two years after the Scouts launched its vision for race equity to improve the ethnic diversity of the membership, volunteers and leadership.
The report noted that people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds comprise only 8% of the Scouts’ membership, a significantly lower proportion than in the UK population (14%). It added that “for some members, negative experiences have led them to feel Scouts isn’t a place for them”.
Carl Hankinson, the UK chief volunteer at the Scouts, said of Fields: “He champions the sense of belonging Scouts gives young people. He is able to reach across generations, to further expand reach across all communities.”
Born in Jamaica, Fields came to the UK at the age of six. Growing up in inner-city London, he became a victim of both knife and gun crime, and also lacked access to nature. But he was offered “new horizons” with the Scouts, according to the group.
When he joined as a Cub scout, membership of his local pack gave him “friendships, skills, belief in himself and hope for his future”.
He went on to become the first black Briton to reach the north pole in 2013 and has gone on to have a successful career in adventure and TV, presenting shows on Channel 5, Disney+ and National Geographic.
Sophia Sanyahumbi, a 17-year-old Explorer scout from south London, said she thought Fields was “determined to make a difference to young people’s lives through scouting”.
A Scouts spokesperson said: “We have close to 150,000 adult volunteers. We are working towards at least 5% of our volunteers to be from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and are currently standing at 3.8%.
“We are planning pilots to focus on scouting in Black communities and build connections with those communities.”