Patches

For most Dutch scouts, insignes (patches) are not a very important part of their program. In any case, patches are only intended for the agegroups between 7 and 11 and 11 and 14 years old. The way groups work with patches varies greatly. Sometimes several opkomsten (weekly meetings) are spent so the whole group earns a specific patch. In other cases it's up to the scouts themselves to decide if they want a patch, and if so which one.

If you decide to try to earn a patch, though, you have to chose a certain amount of assignments from a longer list of assignments specific for the patch (usually three out of five). The available patches differ between agegroups - in their appearance and in the assignments that come with it. The patches for Scouts always are pentagon-shaped and have a blue background with a red border. Patches for the brownies and cubscouts age are green (also with a red border) and triangular-shaped.
As an example the assignments for two patches: the Andere wereld (Another World) patch for the agegroup between 7 and 11 years and Internationaal (International) for the agegroup between 11 and 14 years. We chose these patches cause they are most similar to the Scouting Around the World patch.