IGG boosting youth mental health

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Irish Girl Guides (IGG) helps boost the mental health of girls and young women from age five to 30 through its Healthy Mind programme.

In this video some of our youth members talk about the activities they did to earn their Healthy Mind badge. Also, how doing these activities helped boost their mental health and helped them cope with challenges in their lives, like living through the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are grateful to the ESB Energy for Generations Fund, which has given us a grant to boost the rollout of our Healthy Mind programme.

The grant is going towards the upskilling of volunteer Leaders to deliver the Healthy Mind programme and to sponsoring 3,000 Healthy Mind badges for our youth members. It also enabled us to bring out a special Healthy Minds edition of our magazine Trefoil News.

Guiding skills help IGG members cope with Covid-19 challenges

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The past year has been tough for everyone but many members of Irish Girl Guides have found that the resilience and coping skills they have gained through Guiding have helped them cope and adapt since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this 10-minute video members of all ages share how their Guiding skills and experience have helped them get through the challenges of the past year >>

A shorter version (less than 3 minutes) can be seen here >>

 

 

Centenary Guides in conversation with Shirley McCay

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Centenary Guides from Dundrum, Dublin, nominated hockey trail-blazer Shirley McCay to be the Irish Girl Guides Ambassador 2020-2021.

The girls are massive hockey fans and have even travelled to Northern Ireland to watch Shirley and her Ireland Women’s Hockey team-mates in action.

In this video they meet Shirley by Zoom and ask her some of their burning questions, including:

– How many hockey sticks do you have?

– How often do you train?

– Do you ever panic when the ball is coming towards you?

– Do you have to eat a special diet?

– What was it like getting the Silver Medal in the World Cup?

Shirley and the Guides also share Guiding memories with each other. Shirley has fond memories of being a Brownie and Guide when she was growing up near Omagh, Co Tyrone.

 

Sharing the Guiding Light!

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THANK YOU to our members (264 in total!) who responded to our call to share the Guiding Light in the run up to World Thinking Day 2021!
 
We hope the #GuidingLight will travel far and wide with our sister Girl Guides and Girl Scouts throughout the world joining us in passing on the Guiding Light on social media. You can see our Guiding Light on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.
Let’s all work together to spread light, hope and peace across the world on World Thinking Day and in the weeks, months and years to come.

Join the IGG Danceathon!

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We hope all IGG members from 5-95 will join in the IGG Danceathon!

Dancing is great for our physical and mental health, it’s super exercise and it’s great fun too!

The song we have chosen is Better When I’m Dancin’ by Meaghan Trainor – a fabulous upbeat song which gets everyone in a good mood!

Watch this video with Drogheda Leader Amy McCauley to learn the steps …

Once you’ve learned the steps, share a video on social media of you dancing in IGG uniform with the hashtag #IGGDanceathon​​! And don’t forget to tag us!

HAVE FUN!!

Ireland Women’s Senior Hockey Team supports Mishon Moon!

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We are HUGELY grateful to our Honorary Ambassador Shirley McCay, Ireland’s most capped female athlete, and her hockey team-mates for donating the kilometres from their training sessions and matches to our Mishon Moon initiative. That’s over 1,000kms a week!

In February 2020 Irish Girl Guides’ members set themselves the target of walking/running/cycling/swimming 363,104 kms – the distance of the earth to the moon. We are now over a quarter of a way there and we WILL get there by working together!

Families, friends, supporters and members of the public are welcome to donate too to help us reach our target. Simply add your daily/weekly/monthly kms to the Mishon app using the hashtag #MishonMoon​. Or, if you prefer, email your weekly/monthly total to irishgirlguidesmishon@gmail.com.

Every kilometre is helping us reach the moon!

Fast fashion and teamwork

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Taking part in the ECO-UNESCO #YouthClimateJustice project has equipped Galway City Senior Branch member, Beabhin, to take better care of the planet.

In this video she describes how she learned about the negative impacts of #FastFashion and discovered that hard work and teamwork can lead to great things >>

You can  see the presentation video Galway City Senior Branch made here. This was shown during the Youth Climate Justice Showcase at the end of ECO-UNESCO’s Youth Climate Justice Week.

‘Harnessing Young People’s Power’ Youth Summit

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We were delighted to co-host a Youth Summit with the National Youth Council of Ireland during One World Week 2020. It was a super opportunity for us to showcase how giving space and opportunity to young people is an important strategy to youth empowerment.

Patricia Gutteridge and Teagan Stanley talk about how their participation in the Senior Branch centenary trip to Sangam World Centre led to the development of our SDG12 Responsible Consumerism badge and Beth Moody and Emily Yule talk about all the amazing opportunities they have had with Irish Girl Guides, including taking part in the international Juliette Low Seminar where they developed their leadership skills and learned more about female empowerment.

Our International Commissioner Jenna Goodwin talks about how girls and young women develop advocacy skills through Guiding and her experience representing the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts at the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women where she spoke up about the importance of informal education, like Guiding.

And finally … award-winning foreign affairs correspondent and former IGG member Mary Fitzgerald shares how the skills she learned as a Guide – teamwork, collaboration and leading with confidence – have helped in her career. She also talks about the inspirational work she has seen Guides undertaking in Libya and other countries and how the media has a responsibility to hold the powerful to account.

https://youtu.be/OMMOKYgU0wg

One World Week is a week of youth-led awareness raising, education, critical engagement with issues, and action. During One World Week, young people learn about local, national, and global justice issues and take action to bring about change.

IGG wins Diversity In Tech Award!

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We were thrilled to win the Mentorship category of the Diversity In Tech Awards 2020!

This was in recognition of the work our volunteers and staff do promoting #GirlsInSTEM, #WomenInSTEM and #WomenInTech.

This video showcases some of the ways we encourage our 10,000 youth members to get involved in STEM.

We could never do it on our own, though, so MANY THANKS to our wonderful partners – Aer Lingus, Engineers Ireland, Dr Niamh Shaw, Science Foundation Ireland, ESERO Ireland, Prof Deirdre Butler of Dublin City University’s School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies and LearnIt Ireland.

 

IGG Working Towards a Sustainable Future

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Irish Girl Guides is working towards a future where girls and young women are empowered and have the confidence to be changemakers – a future where everyone is treated equally and where climate change is no longer a threat.

This video was made by a group of Senior Branch members (Senior Branch is the IGG branch for 14-30 year olds) to showcase our work around sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals >>

We Are The Future

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Louise from Centenary Senior Branch, Dundrum, is calling on the government for increased youth investment in Budget 2021.
She says being a Girl Guide has helped her grow in confidence and independence as well as giving her opportunities to make great friends and hilarious memories.
She recorded this video in support of the National Youth Council of Ireland’s #YouthWorkChangesLives campaign calling on the Government to commit to an additional €4.7m for youth services in Budget 2021.

Youth Can’t Wait!

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‘Youth can’t wait. We need to act now to save our generation.’

In this powerful video Alex Healy of Tír na nÓg Senior Branch in Lucan shares the importance of a safe space, like Girl Guides, for girls and young women. She says she would not be the person she is today if she hadn’t been a member of Irish Girl Guides.

Alex recorded this video in support of the National Youth Council of Ireland’s #YouthWorkChangesLives campaign calling on the Government to commit to an additional €4.7m youth investment in Budget2021.

You can read our press release about the campaign here.

Girl Guides Changes Lives

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Irish Girl Guides, together with other member organisations of the National Youth Council of Ireland, is calling on Government to commit to an additional €4.7m in youth investment in #Budget2021.

As part of the #YouthWorkChangesLives campaign, we made this ‘Girl Guides Changes Lives’ video to demonstrate how girls and young women benefit from their involvement in Guiding and how our volunteer Leaders are finding ways to continue to engage with our youth members during the pandemic.

You can also read our #YouthWorkChangesLives press release here.

Timpeall an Domhain

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All Guide Units are invited to take part in Timpeall an Domhain – a journey ‘around the world’ with our International Committee!

You get to choose one of the following countries – Jamaica, Jordan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland – and learn about the culture of your selected country. You could learn a craft or song, create a drama and make a poster and a dessert from that country!

Watch this video to see what happened at last year’s finals >>

 

#becomeavolunteer with us!

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To mark International Women’s Day (8 March), we are launching a recruitment campaign to encourage more women to #becomeavolunteer with us!

Volunteer Leaders come from all kinds of backgrounds and with different skill sets. Everyone has something to offer and the rewards you will get in return are immeasurable – confidence, fun, friendship and the opportunity to develop your skills and talents.

3,000 girls are on our waiting lists! In order to welcome these girls to Guiding, we urgently need more volunteers! There are many ways to volunteer with us, from working directly with the girls as a Leader or Unit Helper, to support roles behind the scenes.

Watch our #becomeavolunteer video and check out our volunteer page!