Saturday

Mary Lynn Myers, Deputy Chairman of the World Board and Lucía Piñeiro, member of the World Board started by introducing the topic of WAGGGS’ new policy on suspension and cancellation of Member Organizations.

 

The participants then spent the rest of the morning attending a variety of interesting workshops designed to enhance their knowledge of different areas of Guiding by experience sharing and learning.

 

All participants took part in the workshop on leadership development - one of WAGGGS’ three goals. Anne Rise, member of the World Centres Committee, facilitated this workshop.

 

Heather Madill, Programme Manager at Pax Lodge World Centre in London, UK and Mary Lynn Myers led the Communications workshop. This was a practical workshop where participants were able to learn the basics of setting up a micro-site for their Member Organizations. They also learned more about the new round logo and how to use the seven key messages and “Girls worldwide say…” in line with WAGGGS’ repositioning work.

 

Lucía Piñeiro and Lilian Damie, member of the Africa Committee, facilitated the workshop on the participation of young women in decision making. Lucia said:

 

 

Here is the poem the workshop wrote together entitled ‘New Strategy’:

 

 

Kenya Girl Guides led the workshop on entrepreneurship, ’learn and earn’, and there was another on recruitment and retention of members.

In the afternoon, there was an exchange of ideas dubbed ‘Speed Dating’, where participants had three minutes to find out about each other and the best thing each person’s association had done in the last three years. Delegates exchanged business cards with their contact details and there was time afterwards to find the people they had most enjoyed speaking to in order to learn from best practices.

 

This lively session was followed by the South-South meetings. This was the opportunity for Member Organizations, who are in partnership due to geographical or cultural proximity, to discuss common issues and joint ideas and programmes. Two new South-South groups were established: Central Africa and the Indian Ocean groups.

Fundraising dinner

The evening reverberated with dance and songs during the fundraising dinner under the leadership of Eugenia Mbekeni, vice-Chairman of the Africa Committee. The evening raised funds for Friends of Africa, who are supporters and donors of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting with a special interest in the Africa Region.

There was an auction and raffle and the guest speaker, Dr. Anyangwe, who represents the World Health Organization in Zambia, spoke of the plight of children and women who are the victims of trafficking in Africa and of the urgent need for all us to act on their behalf. There was also entertainment from the recent winner and runner-up of a well-known televised Zambian singing competition.