Hooray for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides!
I was a Girl Scout thru high school. It was an excellent program to encourage leadership, integrity, and diverse skills. I strongly believe that GS provides a unique and important environment for young girls to develop pride in a patriarchal society. Girl Scouts took me `survival camping-canoeing` for weeks in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I received the Silver Award for a project recording hundreds of camp songs and typing out all the lyrics. The results of our project were kept in the GS library for use by leaders and camp counselors. My Gold Award project was to make a quilt that was gifted to a nursing home. The quilt was used by the nursing home staff and residents as a tool for grieving when a patient passed away. All that leadership development, AND I received great scholarships to college for my participation in Girl Scouts!
There is a certain amount of competition that exists between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. My perspective on the Boy Scouts has really changed in the last two decades, and I do not support the organization of Boy Scouts as it currently stands. Girl Scouts encourages diversity, strength, and cooperative leadership. In stark contrast, Boy Scouts of America as an organization is now notorious for homophobia. Less well-known but equally troubling, BS requires that all members are theist and Boy Scouts of America does not acknowledge Unitarian Universalism as a valid religion. How can they claim to educate young leaders with integrity, when the Boy Scouts teach intolerance? ----- end rant.
From the good people at GS-USA:
"On March 12, 1912, exactly 96 years ago today, Juliette Gordon Low convened the first Girl Scout Troop in Savannah, Georgia. As early as 1912, Juliette recognized that developing girls' leadership abilities was critical for ensuring they would be the change-makers of the future.
Today, Girl Scouts continue the legacy of leadership. From founding libraries in America's heartland to establishing free medical clinics in India, each year 2.6 million Girl Scouts take the lead in bettering their communities and the world. Girl Scouts is, as it always has been, the organization best positioned to offer girls the tools they need to be successful leaders now and throughout their lives."
I only wish I could buy some Girl Scout cookies here in Japan!
1 comment:
i too was a girl scout, only for a few years though before we left jamestown, nd for a nomadic life elsewhere. i never got the chance to rejoin because we were always on the move. but i really enjoyed my time as a scout -- we went camping in itasca state park in mn to see the headwaters of the mighty mississippi river and i saw a porcupine and thought it was the most wonderful creature i've ever seen.
as one of her goddessmothers and part of her god-squad, this might be an activity/path that you could help encourage in mary grace maybe even be her troop leader! how fun! leadership, adventure, volunteerism, and service are all great qualities for anyone to have, and qualities that i hope her god-squad will help her to develop!
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