Fostering a Sense of Belonging – Heart, Body & Mind

Earlier this year, our amazing volunteer Programme Team, with help from the staff Development Team, started working on the ‘Heart, Body & Mind Badge’. The purpose of this badge is to foster a sense of belonging through: Exploring, appreciating, and celebrating ourselves and each other (Heart); Understanding how bodies function (Body) and developing skills and confidence to interact with others (Mind).

To achieve this badge, girls need to do two activities from each section of the programme syllabus.  

Section One is about celebrating uniqueness. The activities introduce discussions around individual preferences, strengths, similarities and differences. The focus is on what makes me, me. It also focuses on accepting and celebrating differences between people, and what makes each of us special.

In Section Two – how my body works – girls learn more about how some parts of their body function and discover what amazing things their ears, eyes, muscles, bones and brains can do. It opens the opportunity to talk about how everyone’s body is unique and sometimes these parts function in different ways.

Section One and Two build-up to Section Three – being inclusive. This section is focused on activities that support inclusion, a sense of belonging, and gaining awareness of what is in the community to support different needs. The girls have the opportunity to explore and use different skills that enable them to communicate, play and learn alongside others. We want girls to understand and know a sense of belonging and inclusion.

Our Development and Programme teams have created over 100 activities that our volunteer Leaders can do with the different age groups we have – Pippins, Brownies, Guides and Rangers. This means that many, many hours of research, girl consultation and volunteer work were put into creating this badge! 

A huge thank you to all involved! 

And we think it’s awesome, and hope that girls will think so too! But why don’t #YOUBETHEGUIDE!