Our Rights, Our Responsibilities (2002-2008)

From 2002 to 2008, WAGGGS members everywhere took part in the triennial theme, ‘Our Rights, Our Responsibilities’.

Through this theme, WAGGGS aimed to achieve global impact in fulfilling its mission, which is: 

Building on the enormous amount of work inspired by the last theme, ‘Building World Citizenship’, the theme ran six years, ending in 2008. It developed the idea of world citizenship, both individually and in relation to others.

It aimed to raise awareness about basic human rights and helped people to take active and positive responsibility for claiming those rights, not just for themselves but also for others. Through a comprehensive range of support resources, individual members were empowered to become active and effective citizens in their local and global community.

Global Action Theme: a new programme for 2009 onwards

WAGGGS’ Global Action Theme (GAT) is girls worldwide say “together we can change our world,” which focuses on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The GAT replaces ’Our Rights, Our Responsibilities’ as the WAGGGS theme from 2009 onwards.

Educational resources

A number of educational resources were developed for ’Our Rights, Our Responsibilities’ and are still available to download (see Related Documents, below). There is also a whole new programme of educational resources for the Global Action Theme (GAT) including the GAT Badge. Click here for more information.

’Our Rights, Our Responsibilities’ was divided into six sections:

The Right to be Me

This is about discovery of who you are, the development of self-confidence and self-awareness; it is about recognising the right to be different and learning to respect and appreciate others.

The Right to be Heard

This is about democracy and the opportunities that we have to develop our opinions and to have them questioned by others.

The Right to be Happy

This module helps us to think about what makes each of us happy and what we can do to make ourselves happy without hurting ourselves or other people.

The Right to Work Together

Teamwork is especially important in Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting. We can share skills, support each other and achieve far more working together than on your own.

The Right to Learn

We all have abilities that need to be developed in different ways; we also need to acquire life-skills to fulfill our potential.

The Right to Live in Peace

Many of us do not live in a peaceful environment whether at home or in our community or country. This module will help us to recognise why these situations occur and how we can help protect others.

Our Rights, Our Responsibilities projects

You can find out more about what Member Organizations are using the theme by performing a project search under the topic: ‘Our rights, our responsibilities’.