"Green Goddesses" by Kelly Giddings

Beginning in January 2010 I had the wonderful experience of facilitating the Green Goddess program for Hopewell. Green Goddess is an outdoor activity based program for girls 12-15 which aims to help girls build self-esteem, healthy relationships, and have new experiences. Working in partnership with Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC), our program was based out of the Rochester Heights Community House and ran every second Thursday from 6-9pm and the last Saturday of every month.
This session we had a small, yet very keen, group of girls and as such were able to have some great hands on experiences and adventures. In January we learned about dressing properly for winter, shelter building, and knot tying. Our Saturday adventure for January took us to Gatineau Park where we spent the day snowshoeing and making bannock over a fire. February took us on at artistic path as we created and decorated body casts of the girls’ faces, arms, feet and chests. The end results were absolutely beautiful! March offered a new challenge for all as we embarked on Geo-Caching, an outdoor activity where people use a GPS to hide and locate “caches”. We found three caches just in the Rochester Heights neighbourhood, very cool! March also provided an opportunity to get out on bicycles and explore the bike paths in the neighbourhood. We had a special guest come and teach the girls the basics of bike mechanics and how to change a flat tire. Most of the girls had never ridden on a busy street before, so it was a night of many firsts!
I would like to thank my co-facilitator Jen Findley from SWCHC and all the participants for making this session of Green Goddesses a positive experience for all!

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