WHAT do you want to be when you grow up?

It’s a question I often ask the girls and young women I lead as a Girl Guide volunteer and I love the conversation it sparks. I love hearing about their ambitions, or digging deeper into the things they love to do, want to study and make a career of. Occasionally, just occasionally, I might despair at a lack of diversity among the gender roles they’ll share with me, or muse that women still have a long way to go.

But all in all, the young women and girls I volunteer my time to empower have a vast array of choices open to them and I’m old enough now to have seen a good many of them embark on, and excel, at their chosen path.

Earlier this month, and well away from the usual Girl Guide halls or open-air camps I ask this question at, I was with UNICEF Australia National Ambassador Tara Moss when she asked the same question of teenage girls at a life skills program for victims of sexual violence, in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.

Their faces lit up and the room – previously full of girls politely replying to Tara’s questions and patiently waiting for the language translation – became the noisy, excited babble I am used to.  Tara and I smiled at each other, and at them. Here were young women, all of them Syrian refugees, who wanted to and could change their fortunes. A doctor, said one.  A lawyer said another. A teacher. A scientist. A journalist, a writer – like Tara.

We went around the circle, each girl rushing to have her dream translated and share it with us.

But as quickly as their excited chatter filled the room, it stopped. One young woman, just a little older and wiser than her peers – at least in life experience – said her piece and waited quietly for the translation. Her friends, sobered, waited too.

The translation came: I have dreams, but what good are they without an education.

She’s right. The awful truth for these young girls, rebuilding their lives amid the safety of a UNICEF-supported program but against a backdrop of violence, displacement and ongoing uncertainty, is that their education is now so disrupted they have little chance of being the things they dream. Already they face pressures to marry, if not married already, and some, carrying the shame of rape or sexual exploitation, are likely never to have the security that a husband and family can bring.

They can try to learn the basics they’ve missed out on, but these other pressures are too great and their only hope is for their sisters and one day, tragically too soon, their daughters.

You asked that I share with you stories from the three days I spent visiting Syrian refugee families with author and advocate for women and children, Tara Moss.

That’s just one story.

I held an eight-week-old baby hot with fever, listless and close to choking because of a respiratory problem it may well succumb to. I listened to the conversations of my UNICEF colleagues while they tried to negotiate temporary accommodation for refugees from a camp that burned to the ground following a simple cooking fire; a fire that broke out in a camp adjoining the ones we were visiting. I listened to mothers speak, in fear, for their children while they wrestled with the decision to see family members lost to terrorist groups offering to pay their rent and bills. Their hands reached out, imploring us to find a solution while young children played outside in the dirt and older boys loitered around our four-wheel-drives.

These were but a handful of stories, from a handful of the millions who have left all they know in Syria and risked everything to be safe. Safe.




Tara Moss has a UNICEF Australia appeal open. The appeal focuses on the many, many children born into an emergency like the Syria crisis. You can read more about Tara’s trip to meet these children here, or on Tara's website here, or watch and listen to the interviews she’s given here, here and here.

If you’d like to donate to UNICEF’s work for children, especially the youngest and most vulnerable, please do. Visit www.unicef.org.au/taramoss


Little people's shoes inside a temporary learning space. Credit: Kate Moore

• Share your herbs and bring health, happiness and keep money in people's hip pockets.
• Make a mess, throw stuff away and still do good things for the planet.
• It takes so very little effort to make a difference - good or bad. You choose.
• That same effort can be modelled in the next generation. Again, you choose.
• Look fine with a fashion company supporting traditional Ghanaian textile traditions.
• See the film Girl Rising at a fundraiser that protects Nepalese children.
• To do good work one should not speak on behalf of the people but empower them to speak for themselves.
• This Mother's Day, give your mum the Best.Present.Ever. 

Oh, and please do spread the word...
And, thank you.

I'M over here today but do come back and tell me what you think. I would love to know how you're doing your bit - or savin' the world, as I like to say. Maybe you've thought about this for your daughter and you'd like to ask a few questions. Fire away. I warn you, I can go on though.

OH for a parent committee like the one in the manual. Girl Guides goes back this week and I am a bit worried. I need help. I need more hours in my day. The leader I work with is 20 and heading off to the big smoke soon and no one seems to want her job. What? Why wouldn't you? We pay nothing, you put in extraordinary hours and give up a fair chunk of your weekends. There are perks, it's just I am having trouble thinking of them. It'll be good. I am sure it will be. We just need to get our committee of two - soon to be one - back into the swing of things.

Hang on, I just looked and my manual seems out of date ... 

And back in katiecrackernutsland...

Caz, of Bird with the Golden Seed, alerted me to Margaret's iPhone app. No more asking what Margaret would do, we can just look it up.

Lexi, of Pottymouthmama, spied Margaret out and about doing the shopping last month and pointed out, for such a powerhouse of Australia's culinary world, how small she is. She is small. I met her at a Girl Guide do last year. Yup, too true, Margaret was a Girl Guide. How uber cool is that... hmmm, maybe not so...

Tracey, of Quiet Paws, and Julie, of Four Leaves, have been coveting the same yellow Saltwater sandals as me. Well girls, I went ahead and bought 'em and love 'em and so will you.

THERE are so many causes you could lend your support to, aren't there? So, so many. All of them are worthy. All of them and I do feel guilty when I pass the Salvation Army officer whistling with his cash box at my train station every Thursday morning. I feel bad if I don't buy the current edition of The Big Issue from my local vendor. I feel bad when charity bucket brigades come by and I don't upend my wallet into their collection.

I always have to remind myself I am doing my bit.

This year Girl Guides worldwide celebrate the organisation's centenary. That's 100 years of positive change for girls and young women. While the girls in my unit won't ever, I hope, face the kind of poverty this Girl Effect campaign highlights they will be the movers and shakers in years to come making sure 12-year-olds across the world can afford the opportunities they have enjoyed. For me, it does take just one 12-year-old - and at the current moment I have 18 girls between the age of 10 and 14 learning about just the kinds of things they can do to make their world a better place.

Below are six of eight global actions Girl Guides have signed on to do as our organisation's commitment to delivering the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. 

Girls worldwide say together we can end extreme poverty and hunger.
Girls worldwide say education opens doors for all girls and boys.
Girls worldwide say empowering girls will change our world.
Girls worlwide say together we can save children's lives.
Girls worldwide say every mother's life is precious.
Girls worldwide say we can stop the spread of AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

I am very proud to be a Girl Guide leader. It's an extremely worthy cause.

THIS is why I am a Girl Guide leader ... it's my way of saving the world.

I HAD one of those funny “a-ha” moments last week. I suddenly realised I knew people who did stuff. You know, had made something of themselves.

I have three talented friends working in the television industry, a number of friends who are dedicated teachers - one in particular working with very difficult students and juggling a role as year adviser. Another is about to move to Colombia to teach. I have one friend in publishing and living overseas, another friend working in the aid field and again living overseas, one working with victims of sex trafficking and another an advocate for the health, safety and rights of sex workers. I have a friend who pitches to bring big corporate conferences to town – and as a result knows every nook and cranny of Sydney like the back of her hand. I have another friend communicating the inner workings of a big bank to its customers and stakeholders. I have friends who are cops, childcare workers, community advocates, journalists, mums, dads, accountants, beauty therapists, sole business operators and postal managers ... by golly. I’m so proud.

TO all Victorian bloggers, and all Victorians, affected by the fires, my thoughts are with you. The death toll continues to climb with police and fire crews now making their way into ravaged towns and villages and over roads where people have been caught trying to escape the inferno.

I know there are a number of bushfire appeals about, but if you're looking for something simple and practical to do Guides Victoria is calling for packed toiletries and toys to distribute among the needy.

Hug everyone a little closer today.

I SAID here there was a lot of fulltime stuff happening in my life. Fulltime family, fulltime work and what feels like fulltime volunteering.

This year I will have been a member of the Girl Guides for 25 years. I joined when I was 10 and have, as a Guide and leader been challenged in extraordinary ways. I travelled to Bangladesh and worked for a UNICEF program there, launched and ran a monthly market to raise funds for the same, led members through major changes to the association’s programs at a national level and met many, many, many wonderful, inspirational, hardworking, enthusiastic, passionate and determined women.

Best of all, each and every week I am surrounded by my enthusiastic charges and together we plan adventures to push ourselves outside our comfort zones in a way that is supported and safe. The Guides enter the hall with the angst and worries of teenage girls but leave two hours later in high spirits, dirty and laughing (very often at themselves, and me). When all else in their tiny worlds – because their worlds are tiny – feels out of control they can come to Guides and be themselves. No one there will judge them. They will be encouraged. Their ideas will be heard and even trialled. They’re allowed to fail. In fact, failure is encouraged. If it doesn’t work, we take a good look at what went wrong – together – and have another go.

In all my adult years as a Guide leader I have found no other organisation that delivers so much to its members. I have seen young women leave my unit at 14 and whether they remain Guides or not they take that spirit of adventure and sense of accomplishment into their adult lives.

It’s been a hard decision to take but come term II of this year I will be taking six months off from active leadership and concentrating on some new pursuits – mainly writing and art – and on helping my partner balance a hectic study load. If at the end of six months we find things are calm at home, that new doors have been nudged open and that I’m not missing the action and activity of the unit, I’ll retire from active leadership.

I know, I know, anticlimax, huh? But you have no idea how much angst there has been in making this decision.

The words of the darling Natalie, of Daily Imprint, helped.

The only way we develop as people is by giving ourselves challenges and looking into ourselves.

Too true, and I need to stop and take a look. I’ve been flying through the days and weeks and years and there’s been little time to stop and look up and out.

My challenge is to find new ways to fill the gap that will be left. Girl Guides has been, for me, a community, not unlike a church community. It’s a value base, a set of rules for living, a place to be renewed and revived. I understand my place in that community. At the ripe old age of 34 I am in fact an elder. I have war wounds, a shared history and a vision for the community’s future. But I am also aware it’s a crutch and one I have used far too long to avoid letting other projects and ideas take flight.

So, I head back for a term to sort a few things out. Then I’ll pack my swag, set my compass (all things I know how to do because I am a Girl Guide) and bid those sweet faces farewell for a little while. You know, I agonised over this until I realised I was a Girl Guide in the same way I am a woman, a parent, a gardener, a writer. I don’t stop being one just because I’m not there to open the Guide hall at 6.30pm every Thursday night. There’s a saying among us Guides: Once a Girl Guide, always a Girl Guide. It’s so true.

Go on, tell me you’ve agonised over something that, now I write about it, seems so simple, so small. But it’s not. Really. It’s huge.

A final word on all these thoughts from Ms Power: “Give yourself permission to do what you need to stay sane and have faith that everything changes.”

Thank you. Normal blogging will now resume.