Local woman to sit on UK Girlguiding Council
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Dawn Stevenson, who is just one of two representatives from Northern Ireland on the UK Council for Girlguiding. She will sit on the association’s council for the next three years. SU2724AM
"It is giving girls opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise," Dawn Stevenson, district commissioner of the Girl Guides said.
The local woman is now just one of two representatives from Northern Ireland who will sit on the UK Council for Girlguiding for the next three years.
From the age of four, Ms Stevenson has been a member of the local girlguiding association, when she joined the movement's 'bunnies' section. For the last four years, she has been the district commissioner of the local girlguides. And now she has been appointed to represent local interests and direct policy on the UK Council for Girlguiding.
Over the coming three years, Ms Stevenson will decide how the association should move forward in the 21st century.
The development of girls attending the girl guides across the UK are paramount to Ms Stevenson's own priorities.
She said membership has increased in branches across the UK, including Strabane, over recent years, and most notably this year as the movement marks its centenary year.
“We have been doing it for 100 years so we must be doing something right," Ms Stevenson said. "But we need to develop in such a way that we still keep the aims and objectives of the Girlguiding Association. "It is an organisation for girls, it is just a place for them to be themselves and with no peer pressure. It is an opportunity for girls to develop emotionally and to make a positive contribution to the group."
The organisation has been central to her own development, she added.
“It is giving girls opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise. I have got a great deal of opportunities that I would not have got myself and I have met a lot of friends. Girls tell me that when they go on to secondary school they leave friends who go to different schools, but they can still see them at the Girlguides."
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