Breaking Free

I’m sure most of you know that one of my roles within Guiding is that of a Peer Educator. I’ve been trained as a Peer Educator for two years now and during that time I’ve ran 19 sessions and am trained on all three resources. As part of a new series on my blog I am going to be sharing with you each topic and resource in a little bit more detail to help you understand each resources aims and messages and encourage you to get involved or invite some Peer Educators to your unit! 

Breaking Free is the latest resource released by Peer Ed and is based on Gender Stereotypes. The resource requires one unit meeting and also for the leaders to run a stand alone activity the following week for the girls to earn their badges (Peer Educators will provide more guidance on this) but without the activity ran by the leader the following week, the girls won’t have earned their badges! 

So a Breaking Free session is split into four sections with four different aims;

The first activity will be based on what is gender and all of the activities are designed to approach this in a age appropriate and sensitive way. It’s important to remember that Peer Educators receive training on how to deal with questions and queries that may arise from this theme and more information can be found on the Girlguiding website! 

Section two is to educate girls on stereotypes and why they are a problem in society! All the activities range from discussions to active games and a few more creative themed ones and your Peer Educator will ensure there is a good balance of activities in your session. Its important to let your Peer Educator know of any mobility issues of your girls and your space constraints to ensure everyone will get the most out of the session! 

Section three is identifying and challenging stereotypes and I love how the activities break down such a complex issue into something understandable for girls of all ages! Stereotypes have such a large effect on all genders and all ages and I love that Girlguiding is helping tackle such an issue in todays society! 

Finally, your session will end with Breaking Free of stereotypes where girls will make decide how they are going to move forward and challenge gender stereotypes in their future! 

During my training I got to test out some of the activities and I’ve also been looking through my book and so far i really like the look of Stereotype jellyfish, animal stereotypes and stereotype shields which I’ll defiantly be trying out in my sessions. 

I’m combining Breaking Free with my Queen’s Guide community action project where I’ll be researching the effect of stereotypes on girls and running 10 Breaking Free sessions between now and January and I can’t wait to get into units running this resource! 

If you have any questions please do ask and I hope this will make you get a Peer Educator along to your unit! 

M x