Girls Leading Change

Providing Service, Speaking Out & Taking Action

Overview

- Serve, Speak and Act

- Big Opportunities

- Opportunities for Everyone

- Where can we go from here?

The WAGGGS

Global Action Theme (GAT) is:

Girls Worldwide say:

“Together We Can Change Our World”

The WAGGGS Advocacy Tool Kit

AdvocacyWe influence people to take decisions that We influence people to take decisions that

will improve our lives and the lives of otherswill improve our lives and the lives of others

Take a stand and work for positive change!

Serve, Speak, Act in GGC

GGC Strategic Priority #3: Girl Members will contribute to a better world through providing service, speaking out and taking action on issues important to them.

Serve, Speak, Act also directly relates to Strategic Priority #1 and indirectly relates to Strategic Priority #2.

What is Serve, Speak, Act?

– Serve is helping, everyday kindness

– Speak is to advocate

– Act is to take action yourself

All are elements of service.

Big Opportunitiesto Serve, Speak and Act

Take Action! Academies Ecuador Youth Trips

Juliette Low Seminars

Take Action! Academies

• Run by Me to We (Free The Children)

• Week-long events held in four cities across Canada

• Attendees learn and use skills for speaking out and taking action

Ecuador Youth Trip

• Run by Me to We (Free the Children)

• Attendees work on serve, speak, act projects in a village and make connections with Ecuadorian Girl Guides

Juliette Low Seminars

• WAGGGS’ premier leadership event for young women

• Focuses on inter-cultural leadership and networking among heavily involved young adults

Serve, Speak & Act on Other Trips

• Some World Centre, Provincial and independently organised trips also focus on Service, Speaking Out and Taking Action

• Lets encourage more! – More trips/opportunities with a focus on Serving,

Speaking Out & Taking Action – More sharing of big experiences of Serving, Speaking

Out & Taking Action

Big Opportunities

• Have a big impact on participants

• Tend to be expensive and thus limited to just a few girls we can send and who can afford to go

• Need for sharing post-event

The Hunger Feast

Serve, Speak, Act – Opportunities for Everyone

• WAGGGS Challenges and Programming

• GGC Programs, Challenges and Days of Action

• Independent Initiatives

Challenges and Global Action Days

• Global Youth Service Day

• December 6 – Day of Action on Violence Against Women

• Tree Planting Grant

• PhotoVoice (starting April 2009) )

• Through WAGGGS– HIV/AIDS– Teen pregnancy– Right to Food – Raising money for and/or visiting

Mutual Aid/Twinning/CWFF projects

• Lady Baden Powell Challenge

• Habitat for Humanity Challenge

• World Food Day

• CyberCitizen challenge

• Climate Change/Yukon Challenge

• Take our Girls to Vote

• Girls United

• Girls EmPower

• Community Safety Audits

Global Youth Service Day

• Annual celebration of youth service contributions worldwide

• Millions of participants globally

• Wide variety of activities

Day of Action on Violence Against Women (December 6)

• Anniversary of l’École Polytechnique massacre

• Canada-wide challenge to learn about and protect ourselves from violence against women

Tree Planting Grant

• GGC grants up to $500 to facilitate tree-planting or habitat restoration activities

• Empowers girls to take real, tangible action in their communities

Canadian Girls Say: PhotoVoice

• Girls express their thoughts through photos

• Photos can be of problems or points of pride

• Photos will be featured in an online gallery and a report on girls-identified issues.

Daddy’s Boat

Photo by: Bailey

Amadio, 7 yrs old,1st Port Morien

Brownies, Nova Scotia

International and WAGGGS Programming

• HIV/AIDS

• Teen pregnancy

• Right to Food

• Development projects

Challenges we Face

• Topics can be controversial

• Follow-up and sharing is poor

• Needs to be girl-led and girl-focused

Where can we go from here?

• Incorporate and promote service, speaking out and taking action in more aspects of GGC

• Remove barriers to girls providing service, speaking out and taking action

• Be girl-focused! Listen to girls

How YOU can help

Can you directly support girls Providing Service, Speaking Out and Taking Action?

Does your network do anything that might impede girls’ ability to Serve, Speak and

Act?

Wrap-up

Kristen Hope – Coordinator, Community and Global Awareness hopek@girlguides.ca