Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

Sascha.wil­son @guardian.co.tt

Point­ing out that in to­day's world, girls need to be able to stand strong, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ap­pealed to par­ents and guardians to let their chil­dren be part of the Girl Guides Move­ment.

Kan­ga­loo ad­dressed mem­bers for the first time since be­com­ing their pa­tron when she at­tend­ed the As­so­ci­a­tion's Thanks­giv­ing Church Ser­vice at the Pro-Cathe­dral of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

  Not­ing that there was no bet­ter time than Guides Month to ap­peal to par­ents and guardians for their girls to join the dy­nam­ic glob­al move­ment of girl world chang­ers, Kan­ga­loo said, "The pur­pose of Guide Month, af­ter all, is to raise pub­lic aware­ness about girl guid­ing and to re­cruit new mem­bers, lead­ers and sup­port­ers. We live in an age in which girls need to be able to stand their ground, de­fend their rights and ad­vo­cate for them­selves, just like those brave girls did by at­tend­ing that Boys Scout ral­ly in 1909.  

"Our chil­dren, our fam­i­lies, and our com­mu­ni­ties will all be bet­ter when girls stand up for them­selves and let their voic­es be heard. I hope that par­ents and guardians of po­ten­tial mem­bers heed my cry."

Pledg­ing her whole­heart­ed sup­port to the As­so­ci­a­tion, she said Brown­ies and Guides in­spire her and give her hope for the fu­ture.

She said the move­ment has a long his­to­ry of en­cour­ag­ing, ed­u­cat­ing and em­pow­er­ing young women to ful­fil their great­est po­ten­tial.

 Adding that fe­male lead­ers owe a lot to the mem­bers of the move­ment, she said,  "For all we know, we may not have had fe­male lead­ers like you are be­ing trained to be­come. We may nev­er have had a fe­male prime min­is­ter or fe­male pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers in our Par­lia­ment or even fe­male pres­i­dents."

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said the move­ment al­so teach­es the im­por­tance of ser­vice to oth­ers. "It seems to me that this is what our so­ci­ety and our world need now more than ever per­sons who are will­ing to serve oth­ers. It is said that the hands that serve are holi­er than the lips that pray,"  said Kan­ga­loo.

 In his homi­ly, Fa­ther David Khan said peo­ple, in­clud­ing lead­ers, need to be guid­ed by truth and in­tegri­ty. "That is why it is so im­por­tant for any­one who is a leader, they need to be peo­ple of truth and in­tegri­ty be­cause if our lead­ers are lead­ing us down a wrong path where we would lead oth­ers un­less we change the path. The re­al­i­ty is this, every path leads to a des­ti­na­tion and if we are on the wrong path we will nev­er ar­rive at the right des­ti­na­tion but if we are on the right path no mat­ter how dif­fi­cult, how hard the jour­ney may be we will al­ways ar­rive at the right des­ti­na­tion."

 In wel­com­ing the Pres­i­dent, scores of Brown­ies and Guides dressed in their uni­forms lined Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Held un­der two themes–Pre­pared to Change The World; and Dream, Act, Lead: The Fu­ture is Ours, the event was or­gan­ised to wel­come Kan­ga­loo as their pa­tron and to com­mem­o­rate Guide Month.