Kugluktuk girl guides re-invent themselves

SEAN MCKIBBON

IQALUIT – In the South, the church basement as a meeting place for girl guide and boy scout troops is a cliché. In the Arctic, there aren’t any basements.

But a group of girl guides and brownies in Kugluktuk has found a way to differentiate itself from the cookie-cutter image many people have formed and to make their group relevant to the community.

Instead of holding weekly meetings in a place where volunteers are spread thinly, the troop of four to six leaders and almost 40 young girls has become something of a service organization, helping elders, catering events, and working on a community library.

“Community service has always been a focus of the Guides,” says Kugluktuk’s guide leader, Jane McMullin.

“But there was more emphasis on going after the badges, and the community would benefit through that. We’re going at it from the other way around, with more emphasis on community programs and working the badges into it afterward.”

For instance, in Kugluktuk, girl guides are helping to create a web site that will focus on sharing information between community groups and also profile the family trees of two large families in the community.

No single badge would cover the whole project, but afterward McMullin and the other girl guide leaders in the community can look at the work the girls did and see which badges are appropriate to reward them with.

“We’re very loosey-goosey,” says McMullin.

It’s a reversal of philosophy that is going on throughout the guiding movement in Canada says the Chief Commissioner of the Girl Guides of Canada, Elaine Paterson.

“There’s a smorgasbord of challenges and experiences this organization can offer girls,” Paterson says.

The leader of the Canadian Girl Guides movement was in Nunavut recently to help drum up support and membership in the organization. She said Girl Guides can expose young women to experiences they might never get otherwise.

Paterson cites a recent camp that brought together girl guides aged 15-18 from across the country as an example of an opportunity for young women to grow and expand their horizons.

The Guides do everything from the traditional camping activities and learning about how to manage a home, to working on environmental concerns and international development.

Some Guides in Ontario are working with a community in Kenya to help establish a community orchard, while other guiding groups in Canada are working on international development projects such as water well drilling, helping a school in Gambia, or working on a bakery project in El Salvador.

Paterson says similar projects could also be sponsored in Canada.

“The possibilities for an organization like this are absolutely endless.”