“Do a good turn, daily” has been the Girl Scout slogan since our beginning in 1912.  As modern Girl Scouts, we have an awesome responsibility to continue that legacy by guiding our girls to help others and make an impact on our world today!

How Do We Help Our World?

That’s a pretty tall order, right? Many volunteers (and girls!) think “the world is so big and we’re so small, how can we even begin to make an impact?” and our answer has always been to start locally.

The Junior Girl Scout handbook in 1963 said:

What you do for your family and your community you do for the world, because the world is, after all, made up of families and communities like yours.

So how do we start? With the Journey awards and Citizenship Badges of course!

It’s Your World, Change It Journey

In November, seniors and ambassadors from across Western Ohio explored their vision for GIRLtopia and the Power of Advocacy at a It’s Your World, Change It Journey Retreat at Camp Rolling Hills. During the retreat, girls interviewed a panel of women who are advocates for a cause either as staff or volunteers with various Dayton organizations.

They asked them about their vision for our world, how they chose a cause to focus on, and what obstacles they encountered both as women and as advocates. Then the girls got down to business creating their own Girl Bill of Rights and a collage of their vision for what GIRLtopia would look like.

Here are a few of their visions of GIRLtopia. What would your girls’ vision be?

This Journey retreat was a powerful experience that encouraged girls to find their voice and depart ready to take action for a cause. We cannot wait to hear some of the awesome things those girls are doing!

The Journeys, and the It’s Your World, Change It! Journey in particular, are designed to help girls at every age level explore their world, discover ways that they can make that world a a better place, and challenge them to be advocates for change in their community just like the girls at our retreat.

All this while having fun, discovering their values and unique voice, and building stronger friendships along the way! What’s not to love in that?

Whatever your girls are inspired to do, whether it’s planting flowers in a vacant lot, recruiting others to design a unity mural for their school, or even starting a signature campaign to change a state law, Girl Scouts who earn Journey awards are discovering what it means to be a leader who makes a difference in the world. And that’s awesome! Isn’t it time your girls learned they have the power to make a difference?

Take It A Step Beyond with Citizenship Badges

An important part of helping others is being an active citizen who understands how the system works on both a local and national level. Girls have great ideas and determination and we want them to know how to make their voices heard and inspire change when they see a need.

That is why Girl Scouts’ legacy badges include the Citizenship badges for Brownies and up.

Girls who complete these badges as they grow in Girl Scouts will explore their local community as Brownies Celebrating Community, go Inside Government as Juniors, learn ways of Finding Common Ground as Cadettes, go Behind the Ballot as seniors, and learn how to get their voice heard with Public Policy as Ambassadors.

These are our next generation of politicians, advocates, voters, and community members. Let’s help our nation by teaching them what it means to be a citizen of the USA!

What Our Country Needs is You!

Recently Girl Scouts of the USA’s Raising Awesome Girls published a blog post called What Our Country Needs Now Is You! and as usual, they were right!

Like ripples in a pond, the effort of each girl who steps forward and dedicates her time to making a difference inspires others to join the movement and adds to the ripples. Put it all together and the ripples can spread across a whole pond (or the world).

So get started with your girls on our Journey awards and Citizenship badges. Let’s give girls the tools they need to make some big ripples, Girl Scouts!