Julia’s Journeys

The world is round -my experiences in South Africa

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.

Later in the week, we were graced by the presence of Kahsenniyo Williams, an Aboriginal Mohawk woman from Six Nations in Caledonia, Ontario. She was an inspiration to us all and she awed us by her wise messages and talents. Kahsenniyo spoke to the girls about traditions in her culture. She spoke about the interconnection between water, environment and how women carry these entities of water and land with them. The girls learned that many Aboriginal communities are organized as matriarchy societies. The girls were amazed by this difference in having women as the leaders and decision-makers in a family and the community.

Next, Kahsenniyo performed spoken word poetry for our group. This was so powerful and inspiring. She explained to the girls that each of us has a voice that needs to be heard and a special talent that needs to be shared with others. Through her conviction and talent, the girls walked away with an important message: “you do not have to look a certain way to be beautiful; you are beautiful for the way you interact with your community, your friends and your family, for the words you speak and the people you inspire”.

Thank you Kahsenniyo and Reztore Pride for making this day possible! And congratulations to our Session Two 2013 Superstars for raising $278.08 for Reztore Pride! Check out the spoken word poem written by the girls at CSP session two below:

Nothing is fresh
We are out of breath
The stress is making us a mess
Our nest is no longer blessed
Our nest is less
Their people are being put to the test unlike the rest
The water needs to be boiled because it got spoiled from under the soil it got oiled
Our community may be small
But not all will surrender
But we stand tall
We will not fall
Together we can fit all
But now we stand tall
We are like a brick wall
That will never fall
We know the rest is a big test
We will be strong
Sing our song
And carry on.

A huge shout out goes to our amazing overnight counselors for all their work and enthusiasm this week! Also a huge thank you to special guest Carly Carrigan who choreographed and filmed this amazing video with us!

Thank you everyone for an incredible Summer 2012!! We look forward to seeing you all next summer!

<3 Yasmin, Mina and Julia

We are so proud of all our super star campers and their accomplishments this week.

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