Millions mark 100 years of Scouts

(CNN) -- Millions of people around the world have taken part in ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the Scouting movement.

Dawn celebrations involving 28 million young people took place across the globe, from Ecuador to Bhutan.

In southern England, 40,000 young people from around the globe gathered to take part in the largest ever 12-day world Scout Jamboree.

The island where the movement was born, Brownsea Island off the coast of England, has been the focus of celebrations, with 300 scouts from more than 160 countries attending a commemorative camp.

It was on that site that Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell held an experimental camp for 20 boys, following his experiences in the Army during the Boer War.

The movement requests its members, boys and girls from the age of six, to uphold values such as trustworthiness, loyalty and to "do their best".

Scouts from countries including the UK, Lebanon, Nepal, Rwanda, Serbia, Libya and Argentina, displayed their flags on the island, before taking part in a sunrise ceremony.

In Romania, scouts formed a human chain around the Parliament building in the capital Bucharest to express how young people will play a role in the country's future.

In Namibia, Africa, around 1,000 scouts cooked breakfast over a camp fire, and groups from Malawi camped at the top of Mulanje mountain.

The Taj Mahal in India, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Sydney Opera House in Australia also witnessed sunrise ceremonies.

The small gathering at Brownsea Island led the rest of the globe in renewing their Scouting promise to build a tolerant and peaceful society.

A speech written by Baden-Powell during the first scout camp was also read out to the group.

It includes a call for peace, comradeship and cooperation over rivalry between "classes, creeds and countries which have done so much in the past to produce wars and unrest".

Alistair, 16, from Manchester, at the Brownsea Island ceremony, said: "It has made me think how one man has changed the world.

"It is one world, one promise. We are all here as peace ambassadors. We are the next generation. We are the ones bringing peace forward into the world," he told the Press Association.

Ana Mejia, 14, from Honduras, added: "It doesn't matter what our nationality, our religion, our color, we are a family and we have to support each other.

Baden-Powell's book "Scouting for Boys" is the fourth biggest selling book in the world after the Bible, the Koran and Mao's Little Red Book. E-mail to a friend