Chief Executive's Message

The first months of 2008 have been full with many interesting and important events. Our global fundraising day, World Thinking Day, was very successful and helped raise much needed money so that we can continue to provide new opportunities to girls and young women. The theme ‘think about water’ inspired many of you to organize great fundraising activities. Thank you! Check the World Thinking Day micro site to find out how Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world celebrated it.

On International Women’s Day,held on 8 March, we received a very special message from Nicole Kidman, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador. She invited all Girl Guides and Girl Scouts to join the campaign ‘Say NO to violence against women’ and help spread the message that violence against women must end. WAGGGS was a launch partner of the campaign, which will now run until November 2008.

On Easter Sunday, 23 March, we all switched on our radios and computers to listen to the BBC Radio 4 appeal for WAGGGS. The appeal was presented by Betty Boothroyd, formerly the Speaker of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Baroness Boothroyd talked about the important work WAGGGS is undertaking, including the campaign to increase awareness and prevention of HIV and AIDS. The broadcast remains live for one month following the appeal on the BBC website so do listen it and please continue giving us your support.

The Olave Baden-Powell Society (OB-PS) provides WAGGGS with much needed funding to support our Mission. I will be attending the annual meeting of OB-PS in Vancouver, Canada, from 25 to 27 April, under the theme ‘Looking Wider, Growing Stronger’. Amongst those attending the event will be: HRH Princess Benedikte of Denmark, Patron of the Society; Princess Aziza from Malaysia; HH Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammad Al Qassimi; HE Mrs Abimbola Fashola, the First Lady of Lagos State, and over 180 other OB-PS members and guests from all over the world.

Preparatory work is underway for the WAGGGS Leadership Development Programme (WLDP), which will be launched at the World Conference in July. In May, Pax Lodge will hold the facilitators training workshop that will help them to learn about the programme.

We are now ready to announce that the Juliette Low Seminar 2008, which had to be postponed due to the political unrest in Kenya last March, will take place in November at Our Chalet World Centre in Switzerland. We hope participants make the most of this platform where young women from around the world develop their leadership skills.

We are in the final stages of the production of the innovative HIV and AIDS training toolkit that WAGGGS has developed with funding from UNAIDS to support all Member Organizations in the fight against AIDS. I am sure it will prove to be a highly effective resource and will increase our capacity to train girls and young women on HIV prevention and stigma reduction. It will be available to all Member Organizations before the WAGGGS World Conference and the global launch will be during the World AIDS Conference in Mexico City in August.

The five Regional Committees have held their meetings during February and March and we are now getting ready for the 33rd WAGGGS World Conference,themed ‘Join in, reach out, change lives’,in Johannesburg. The hostess Member Organization, the Girl Guide Association of South Africa (GGASA) is working very hard to get everything ready to make it the biggest and best conference yet. At the Conference we will launch the centenary theme and we will also introduce our new advocacy plan and strategic plan of the Association for 2009-2011.