Abstract
Girl Guides is one of the most successful organizations for girls and young women, having been established for more than 100 years and now encompassing more than 10 million girls in 146 countries. Active participation in outdoor activities is core to Guiding’s nonformal, values-based education programme of self-development. The authors reflect on the influence that their early participation in Girl Guides and outdoor activities had on their identity formation. Despite growing up on opposite sides of the continent, in different contexts, participation in the Girl Guide programme supported the development of shared values, which later brought the authors together as adults. The enduring legacy of these values, embedded in their identities, allowed the authors to develop a strong and effective leadership team that introduced change and facilitated effective management of their local Guide region. Underpinning this management was a shared enjoyment of challenging outdoor activities. Once a Guide, always a Guide.
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Notes
- 1.
The Promise and Law provides a fundamental set of principles to encourage the development of the whole person, including their attitudes, behaviours, and physical being. The Promise and Law that I first made had changed little from the original Promise and Law (WAGGGS, n.d.-c) developed in 1910. Although the Australian Promise and Law has been updated for the twenty-first century, the underpinning values remain consistent with the original intent (Girl Guides Australia, 2016c).
- 2.
This was and remains the highest award attainable in Girl Guides, and is comparable to the Queen’s Scout Award or the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.
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Graham, C., Lusty, R. (2018). Once a Guide, Always a Guide: A Way of Being. In: Gray, T., Mitten, D. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Women and Outdoor Learning. Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53550-0_34
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