Having more women as leaders in our community is what Girls Scouts of the USA strive for, and yesterday afternoon, the Black Diamond Council, who serves nearly 15,000 girls in a 61-county jurisdiction including most of West Virginia, gathered together female leaders from the community to discuss the future of our young girls.
The Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council kicked-off their “ToGetHerThere” campaign, which the organization calls their most aggressive campaign for girls to date, aiming to provide every opportunity to empower girls to reach their fullest potential and build a better world.
The event included a panel discussion centered on the current state of girls in our own state, how to build courage, how to build confidence, and how to build character. However, the topic that pushed heaviest as a means to progress change and promote leadership among girls was building confidence. Confidence seemed to be the key, and First Lady Joanne Tomblin, a member of the panel, says she thinks its organizations like Girl Scouts who will help build young girls confidence.
“A lot of young women come from dysfunctional families,” said Tomblin, “they don’t have people at home to support them, so it’s going to be those organizations that are at least going to start helping them build that confidence, and also, we need more women, more professional women, more parents to volunteer to mentor young women and then give them experiences. The more experiences that you have, the more confidence you’re going to gain.”
Another member of the panel, WVU Law School Dean, Joyce McConnell says she thinks it’s very important for women around the state to reach out to girls who may not have the best family life to help build their confidence with support they may not be receiving at home.
“Support for other women to reach out to girls, help girls understand their own talents and their own strength,” said McConnell, “and so I would say that if a girl has enough confidence to ask for a mentor, that’s a wonderful thing, but so many girls won’t even have that baseline, confidence, that we really have to reach out to them. We have to be much more proactive, and it can happen in the churches, it can happen in our schools, it can happen in community centers, but I think we have to take more responsibility.”
Princess Young, the Chief Development Officer for the Girl Scouts in Charleston said she was very happy with the turnout at the event, and she hopes all the people who were in attendance will be proactive and be interested in being a part of the bigger picture.
“A lot of folks just don’t know,” said Young, “they think of girl scouts, they think cookies, camping, and crafts. And for me, today was about everybody learning about the three C’s that are in our mission, which is building girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. And I think folks got that picture today, and they realize a little bit more about what we’re about and hope they want to get more involved and helping us develop and open those doors for girls in our region.”