Camp plastic tide turners was a success
The Ghana Girl Guides Training Centre at Achimota was a bustle of activities between 24th and 26th June, 2022 as the centre hosted 36 Girl Guides and their Adult leaders from the Mary Mount International School for a camp program named: Plastic Tide Turners.
Plastic Tide Turners is one of the Ghana Girl Guides Association and World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts initiatives that seeks to enable girls to practice the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. According to Madam Naa Dei Amon, the National Trainer: “Girls taking action to change the world is one of our core mandate as an organization. Plastic Tide Turners Challenge Badge (PTTCB) is one of the programs that seeks to enable Girl Guides achieve this mandate. In doing this, they also care for their environment and activate their creative abilities.”
During the camp, Patrols (groups) came up with the group and individual projects such as pencil sharpener cases, flower vases and paintings using recycled plastic as their main raw material. The girls also worked on posters that seeks to educate their peers on the need to manage plastic waste. During the Poster making, Patrols Earth, Forest, Air, and Ocean came up with the following hashtags for their campaign: #UselessToUseful, #PlasticToFanstastic, #GirlGuideTrashRecreates, #GhanaGoesGreen. Naa Koshie Tetteh indicated she will teach her siblings how to make new products with discarded plastics.
Leaders also administered tasks to enable them understand the girls’ overall perception of their attitude to STEM, classification of fields in STEM, the definition of STEM careers and the gender distribution in STEM professions; in which the Girls participated with enthusiasm.
All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl, therefore, Girl Guides at the camp had lots of fun activities such as hiking through the Achimota forest, a visit to the Associations Rabbit cage, Virtual Camp Fire, Games, sing-alongs, and a Parade.
The Camp activities encouraged teamwork, creativity, kindness, and friendship. Other values such as leadership, service respect, courage, politeness, patience, were emphasized at the camp as Guides were leaders of Patrols, supervised and participated in cleaning and preparing for meals among others.
Girls who were exceptional were recognized and awarded with badges on the final day of camp. Winning a badge (she won Most Patient) is not new to Miss Emelda Cobbinah, as she had previously won a Disability badge by learning and using sign language to communicate with one of her colleagues who is hearing and speech impaired. Ageko Eyram (one of the few Ananse’s to join the camp) was awarded for most polite.
Madam Bridget Bart- Bartimeus, an adult leader encouraged Guides in other schools to participate in Camping. She said, “camping is fun, it is a life-changing experience”. She wished her students will be pass along the things they learned at camping for example, becoming Ambassadors of Recycling because plastic waste is becoming a menace in society.
The last camp in this series will come off on the 1st -3rd of July, 2022 at the Training Centre. It will be under the broad theme: Explore Arts
