I was excited to be selected as a participant for the 2022 Juliette Low Seminar (JLS), a WAGGGS global leadership seminar for 18-30 year olds. The aim was to build our confidence as leaders and support girls in our communities to develop leadership skills. At the end of the seminar, we were challenged to run a project to reach 100 girls in their local communities. Having developed an interest in women and young people’s involvement in politics, I chose to run my project on girls and political leadership. The aim was to encourage girls across Edinburgh to engage with politics at a level that felt comfortable for them. I developed a challenge pack called Step Up, Be Bold, and Lead, which 112 young women across Edinburgh took part in.

While developing a challenge pack for my project, I wanted to learn more about how young women interact with politics, and discovered that young women between the ages of 18 and 24 are the least likely to vote (ref). Research from Girlguiding’s Girls Attitude Survey in 2022 found that 63% of girls see sexism in politics and 73% wanted more opportunities for young people to get involved in politics (ref). I was genuinely taken aback by what I was reading, and wanted to use my JLS project to reach Guide and Ranger units with activities to encourage them to think about political leadership, how their voices matter, and how they can get involved.

As leaders, we have the opportunity this “welcome to your vote week” to introduce our young members to politics and the importance of voting. I wanted to share an activity from the challenge pack I developed to run with Guides or Rangers:

From Tiktok to ballot activity

Aim: Time to turn it over to them. Guides/Rangers to create a TikTok, Reel or short video sharing why young women should engage with politics, and when the time comes, register to vote.

You’ll need: Access to a phone for each patrol/group, or 1 per unit.

Directions:

1. Split girls into patrols/small groups.
2. Get them to think about why it’s important to engage in politics, and why it’s important to register to vote.
3. Using 1 phone per group/1 phone per unit that can be passed around, get each group to record a short video, like something they would see on TikTok. Make these videos catchy, snappy, and appealing to other young women their age.
4. Come together as a unit to watch these videos.
5. Go ahead and post them if you everyone has video consent and are old enough to be on these social media apps (13+). If you post them to Instagram, tag Girlguiding Scotland so they can see.

This activity will tick off a clause of the “Voting” badge for Rangers.

If you would like to take this further, you can access the rest of the pack here: Step Up, Be Bold, and Lead. There are three additional activities to support units to explore politics and women in leadership positions:

• What makes a leader? – An activity to learn more about women leaders and what qualities make a good leader. There are examples of young women too, to allow Guides and Rangers to see themselves in these leaders.
• Debate it! – This whole unit activity is designed to develop debating skills, encourage them to think about their opinions and how to communicate them.
• What do you believe? – This allows Guides and Rangers to showcase their creativity and create manifestos sharing what they’re passionate about. (This also completes a clause for the Ranger “women’s rights” badge).