Unite, Thrive and Grow – planning for the future
This month sees the Girl Guides Australia delegation to the 13th Asia Pacific Regional Conference head to Taiwan to Unite, Thrive and Grow. Miranda Cummings, Bronwyn Hughes, Bronwyn Cole, and Larissa Hettiarachchi will join me in Taiwan to share, learn, and work together with representatives from the 26 member countries in the Region to grow Guiding and plan for the future. While in Taiwan we will be helping to celebrate the Asia Pacific Region’s 50th birthday. Australia was a founding member of the Region in 1969 and so we feel very privileged to represent Australia at the birthday celebrations.
Thanks to the Trefoil Guilds that have been very generous with sending donations to provide items for our stall at the Conference International Market. Girl Guides Australia will donate any proceeds from our stall to support our Guiding sisters from the Pacific Islands.
We will be providing updates from the Conference on Girl Guides Australia Facebook and Instagram pages so you can share the experience with us. It is a perfect time to share with Guides in their Unit program that Guiding is much bigger than just their Unit or District or State. Did you know that our Region has 3.6 million members?
Celebrating diversity and international friendship
To support Guides exploring global Guiding, WAGGGS has two special badges for girls to earn and wear on their sash in 2020 – World Thinking Day 2020 and Olympia 2020. The resources for both these badges can be downloaded online – World Thinking Day 2020 and Olympia 2020 – so you can start planning, and the badges will be available in State Guide retail outlets in early 2020.
World Thinking Day 2020 will celebrate diversity in our global Movement of 10 million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 150 countries. The World Thinking Day Activity Pack and Challenge Badge for 2020 is titled Living Threads and is designed to inspire Guides to reflect on how we can put equity and inclusion into practice, and celebrate the diversity in our communities and beyond.
The Olympia Badge was first designed by the Greek Girl Guiding Association in 2004, to celebrate the return of the Olympic Games to Athens, 108 years after Greece hosted the first modern international Olympics. The aim of the Olympia Badge 2020 is to remind people of the original purpose of the Olympic Games: a truly global celebration of peace and international friendship.
In 2020 the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo, Japan. The Olympia Badge 2020 Activity Pack has been developed by WAGGGS and Girl Scouts of Japan for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world to learn more about the spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and about Japanese culture, and to raise awareness of peace and friendship.
Diversity and inclusion; peace and friendship – the themes from the World Thinking Day and Olympia 2020 Activity packs – are synonymous with Girl Guiding so please consider how you can enable girls to share in these programs and then wear their badges with great pride.
Happy Guiding,
Rosemary Derwin
Chief Commissioner
