Why Journeys? -- A Senior Girl Scout perspective

Why Journeys? I know that a lot of Girl Scouts and Leaders aren’t sure if they like Journeys.  And honestly before my recent trip to Ghana Africa – I was wondering what benefit (other than earning the awards) was there to doing all the journeys?

 For the last year I have been working on three Senior Girl Scout Journeys, working towards my summit pin, by myself. The Sow What Journey, on agriculture, green living and healthy living. Mission Sisterhood, on understanding yourself and others, and Girltopia, looking at the world around you and understanding the way others live and work.

            All of these journeys came into play on this Ghana trip. I traveled with five other girls my age who are also Girl Scouts. And without noticing I used different aspects from each journey on this trip.

            I implemented communication and teamwork skills with my group in patrol games during the camping Jamboree. Teamwork skills and communication skills from which I learned and practiced while doing Mission Sisterhood. As well as reading body language of my friends to learn how they where feeling.

            The Sow What journey I saw a lot in the villages. They were using their resources wisely, using what they had instead bringing in more waste. There were people there that had very little but used all of their resources to create something they could use.

            I looked around and took in how the girls and women of Ghana lived and worked everyday while I was there. To me it looked somewhat difficult to live a life style with very little.

For more information on my Journey to visit --

Session 1: GIRLTopia: What is it all about?

                This journey is a chance to imagine a perfect world for girls.  I will e creating this vision thru “art” – which for me is photography and poetry. 

            As I look toward my “vision” I am working on an IP called Global Girls. This badge is an old one so it has been discontinued. I am very glad that my mother found this badge for me because it has helped me see that around the world, not all girls are treated as “respectfully” as they are in the US.

            Working towards this badge has “enlightened” me about the issues going on in third world countries such as Afghanistan and India, and their actions toward, not only women, but girls. I learned while working on this badge that in Afghanistan the people there marry off women at such a young age. Most girls are married off at age 8, and then when they reach puberty age such as 11 or 13, they are transferred from their family’s home and village to their husband’s home and village.

            It is not illegal in Afghanistan to marry off girls at such a young age, but in India it is. The law says that the a girl cannot marry until she is 18, due to health issues and diseases that can be obtained if married and exposed to sexual intercourse before they are physically ready for it. But even though the law says so, the people still marry of six year olds and eight years olds. This happens mostly for “family honor” or it is done to mend a feud between families, or even because a man will pay money to marry a young girl. The ceremony of “binding” is done usually in the wee hours of morning when others are asleep. Many people are caught, but not many stay in jail. In both countries this is the decision of the fathers, brothers, uncles – basically the men of the family.  The girls and mom’s have NO say in the decision. Men in third world countries live like kings, while the women have to strive to survive under them.

            As a senior scout – creating a vision of a Utopian society for girls – I feel that if more girls and women around the world are educated about how other girls/women live that it will make it easier for women in those countries to work on getting their own voice.  I feel those countries would benefit from female leaders and those girls would have a voice.  I even added my voice to the WAGGS violence against girls campaign.  http://www.wagggsworld.org/en/take_action/violence -- “In an ideal world for girls, the world will be more ideal for everyone.”

            In the girl “book” for GirlTopia – they refer to Juliette Gordon Low as a True GIRLtopia Visionary --  “I want to appeal to every Girl Scout,” she said, “to  . . . help to make a newer and better world.”

            If you would like to learn more about this subject through this badge, go to http://www.scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/Documents/Global%20Girls.pdf