Starting with the Girl Scouts
My oldest daughter decided she wanted to be a Girl Scout. She was in first grade. I had been a Junior Girl Scout for a couple years and overall my experiences were not positive. Part of it was my own fault. I was incredibly shy and went along with what I was told. Not only couldn’t I convince my daughter she didn’t want to be a Girl Scout, she found a troop at another school since ours didn’t have one. She talked to the leader and told me what she was going to do. Yes, I was the one who told her if she could offer a convincing argument that “no” was not a definite answer in our house. Silly me! Knowing my own experiences, I went with her to the meetings to make sure she wasn’t pushed outside the cliques and all that stuff I was exposed to. That point I was firm about.
Now, fifteen years later, I have experienced a lot with the Girl Scouts. Again, there’s a lot of negative things that go with the positive. The worst problem is the parents who think you’re babysitting their kids and they can treat you however they want.
However, there’s a good side — the girls that get it. They see that they can do more than they thought. They try new things and SUCCEED. When a face lights up with excitement when they realize that through trial and failure they did it, it grabs my heart and makes me realize why I do this!
And it is for this reason I started the Enrichment Project.
Girl Scout Leader Training
When an adult volunteers to be a Girl Scout leader, they walk into a room with the knowledge and experience of their life so far. Girl Scouts requires certain training so each adult knows about the organization, the resources available, their responsibilities and how to work with the girls of a certain age group.
After this, Girl Scouts of the USA doesn’t train adults.
If you can’t craft, sing or build a fire, you’re expected to learn how on your own or find an expert. Some councils and service units offer enrichment training. (There are a little over 100 councils across the US and each is broken up into smaller area groups or service units.) The last year I was with my old council, I had signed up to do enrichment training for adults during a weeknight evening. I had two people show up of the six who signed up for a cooperative games training. When we talked, I found out they had driven two hours to the two-hour training and had to drive two hours back home. So, investing six hours in an already long day when they had kids at home doing homework, a family to help get to bed and more is very difficult. They really wanted the training and no one in their area was doing it.
Start of a Dream
That is when I started thinking about providing the materials for the class I taught online to people whether they could make a live training or not. I could provide the materials, let them use the Internet for free resources and learn the same things in a fraction of the time. Not only that, but they could do it on their own schedule.
And so the Enrichment Project, or rather Adult Enrichment Project as it was originally called, was born in May 2010.
It has grown a lot. I have shut-in leaders who love the badges because they can offer things to the girls they couldn’t before. I have service units who use the badges for supplemental training at meetings. I’ve even been contacted by girls who ask if they can earn them.
So, I’m working to realize my dream. Yes, it started with simple PDFs and a list of steps with URLs. Today, it includes supplemental materials, badge sets that can be used for event planning and more.
As with all dreams, as time goes by and I’m exposed to more information, I have more ideas to grow the Enrichment Project even further. That’s why coloring sheets and puzzles have been incorporated into the mix as part of the latest series of updates.
If you know an adult who is looking to learn new things to show their kids, let them know about the Enrichment Project. It isn’t limited to Girl Scouts. Use the ideas with your own kids, perhaps you can start a summer activity club for the neighborhood or even try a day camp at a local park.
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