Over Thanksgiving break, junior Caroline Boardman achieved an important milestone and is now one step closer to receiving the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award: through Zoom, Caroline ran a “Young Changemakers Conference” for middle and high school girls to cultivate leadership skills through various workshops and discussions.
The Gold Award is the highest honor in Girl Scouts in which young women are encouraged to take action against a problem in their community and create a lasting impact.
Caroline has been in the Girl Scouts since kindergarten and throughout her 12 years in the program, she has worked her way up towards the Bronze, and subsequently, the Silver award. The Gold Award, which less than 6% of Girl Scouts receive, is an 80-hour, long-lasting action project.
When first deciding what topic to focus on, she reflected on her past experiences and asked herself what she wished she could have previously learned. “I realized that I wished that someone had conveyed to me, especially in my middle school years, the importance of posture and effective dialogue,” Caroline said, “and these all fall under the broader topic of women’s leadership.”
Caroline believes that effective leadership skills are especially important for young girls to foster, as they are certainly put to use in day-to-day life. “Knowing how to effectively build confidence and create healthy relationships is something you’re going to use in everyday life,” Caroline said. “Knowing how to talk to people and make change is something you’re always going to carry with you, and I think it’s important to build that foundation early on.”
For her conference, she hosted two sessions, one for middle school girls, and one for those in high school. In the first session, she organized stations using breakout rooms on one of five topics, including setting boundaries and effective dialogue, and participants rotated between rooms. The second session, however, was much more free-form and focused on reflection and discussion. “We had topics and points to guide the discussion, but the main idea was to get people to think of leadership as a broad subject at first, then to hone in and focus on specific examples,” Caroline said. “We also asked the girls to think about what they’ve seen in their community and think of how we could fix or change that.”
The conference also featured local House Representative from the 18th district, Jillian Gilchrest, as a keynote speaker. Her talk was mostly focused on her journey in becoming a leader and how she became more confident. Ms. Gilchrest discussed her transition from theater to politics and the challenges she faced along the way. Caroline mentioned one of the topics discussed with Ms. Gilchrest that resonated with her. “She was often told to ‘wait her turn’ in politics, ” Caroline said.
Around 30 young women attended Caroline’s conference, and she hopes that she has helped each of them foster effective leadership skills. “I hope that they gained a better understanding of themselves and learned to think of themselves as leaders,” Caroline said. “They have it within themselves to be effective changemakers. I know they do.”
While completing her 80-hour project certainly was no easy task, Caroline enjoyed working toward her Gold Award. “My favorite part of running the conference was probably getting to participate in the second session,” Caroline said. “We talked a lot about the challenges that girls face as leaders, what can hinder attempts at leadership, and I really enjoyed being able to hear what others have experienced and connect that to my own.”
After the completion of her conference, Caroline realized that she also benefited from working towards the Gold Award. “I have learned a lot about planning, communication, and overall gained a better understanding of what leadership is,” Caroline said, “and I definitely hope to continue doing work like this in the future.”
Now that she has finished her project, Caroline is now preparing for her final interview in which she will present her work and submit a final report. Upon the completion of this final step, Caroline will be recognized in a ceremony in June along with the other Gold Award recipients.
While no one can say for sure what is in store for the years ahead, one thing is for certain: With young changemakers like Caroline in the front lines of women’s leadership, the future is bright!
