The Real Girls Runway rose awareness about our topic of the week: gender equality. To tackle this topic, the campers broke into four crews, focusing on gender equality in media, sports, the workplace, or leadership. Some quick stats the girls shared:

WHY BEING A GIRL MATTERS IN THE MEDIA:

– The average North American girl will see 80,000 ads on TV before she has started kindergarten. While boys in ads are almost always shown building, inventing, leading, or playing sports, girls in ads are almost always on the sidelines, laughing or talking.
– Nearly half of Canadian girls between the ages of 10 and 17 have avoided social activities because they feel badly about the way they look. Only 2% of women think they’re beautiful.

WHY BEING A GIRL MATTERS IN SPORTS:

– Although approximately 40% of sport and physical activity participants today are women, only 6 to 8% of total media sports coverage is devoted to their athletics.

– In a study of school books, boys were represented in physical activities 65% of the time, while girls were represented 35% of the time. Boys dominated throwing and catching activities, while girls were mainly seen in traditionally “feminine” sports like dance.

– This year alone, 50,405 Canadian girls will quit swimming because they feel bad in a bathing suit

WHY BEING A GIRL MATTERS IN THE WORKPLACE:

– Women working full-time jobs only earn an average of 71 cents for every $1 that men make. On top of this, women on average spend much more time doing work they don’t get paid for. This can include hours of childcare, cooking, driving, cleaning, laundry, etc. each day.

– Poverty in Canada doesn’t effect all women equally. Some groups of women are much more likely to be poor than others – Aboriginal women 36%, non-white women 35%, women with disabilities 26%, single parent mothers 14%, single senior women 14%.

WHY BEING A GIRL MATTERS IN LEADERSHIP:

– In Canada, 52% of the population is female but only 22% of Members of Parliament are women. On a broader scale, of all the people in parliament in the world, 13% are women.

– Although it is becoming more common to hear of women taking on roles of leadership in businesses, only 13% of directors at Canada’s top 500 private and public companies are women.

Despite the fact that these issues are complicated, the campers learned why these issues are apart of our society and what they can do to try to change them! They also learned that support and leadership of men in the fight for gender equality is important :)And as a side note… the girls raised over $300 in support of their charity of choice, Because I am a Girl Canada

Lastly, this week, we also had a group of LITs – Leaders in Training! In addition to taking on different leadership roles at camp, the LITs also spent an afternoon volunteering with senior citizens at Grandview Lodge and enjoyed yoga, a campfire, and special self-esteem and leadership training on the LIT Overnight.

Thanks everyone for a fantastic week!

Special Guest Theresa Randles

Fundraising for the Stephen Lewis Foundation

What a way to start the summer! We couldn’t have asked for a more amazing week to kick off Stella Puella’s 5th year!

The campers chose child rights as the theme of the week, so they learned about what rights are and some situations where those rights are taken away from some children. The girls’ eyes were opened to the unfair realities of thousands of kids around the world when they learned about child labour and child soldiers.

Highlights of the week included our musical guest Carolyn McKenna and special guest Theresa Randles from Grandmothers of Steel. The campers organized a stellar bake sale at Flyers Cafe, where they sold fair trade baked goods with the proceeds going towards Free the Children’s alternative income projects.

Possibly the most exciting event of the session was a surprise guest speaker at the end of the week. Michel Chikwanine, a former child soldier from the DRC, shared his heart-breaking yet inspiring story with the girls. What an incredible experience that was for our campers to hear first-hand how the rights of children around the world are taken away!

A big thanks to our campers this week for making it such a successful start to the summer! We miss you already!

Love, Yasmin, Mina & Julia

We need to remember that it’s a tough place out there where society has created these tightly bounded categories and if we don’t fit in them, we feel that we don’t belong and are vulnerable to being put down by others. Together, we can break down these boundaries and accept and appreciate people no matter their appearance, beliefs, gender, race or background. Let’s change this way of society, and stop bullying within and around us.  Check out some amazing resources on digital citizenship and anti-bullying strategies for kids, teens, parents and educators at Define The Line.

We love Pink Shirt Day!