What did you do for your Gold Award project?
For my Gold Award project, I created an elementary school rugby program, and I was able to teach elementary school age children rugby, with my coaching skills.
How did you measure the impact your Gold Award project made on your target audience?
To measure the impact of my Gold Award, I hope to see more participation in the middle and high school teams for both boys and girls rugby. To be able to see impact, I had the children raise their hands in the beginning and end of the program and I asked them who was interested in playing rugby in the future. I saw more and more hands being raised at the end of the program, which meant that more children wanted to join at the end of my program.
How is your project sustainable? How will your project continue to impact after your involvement?
My project will be sustained by training younger teammates to take over this camp for the years to come. I will be involved until graduation. My hope for the younger ruggers is to build upon their leadership skills and perform to their highest expectations once I leave the program. My rugby coach and the Summit Rugby Team board will also be involved with continuing the program.
What is your project’s global and/or national connection?
The global link to my project is that rugby is played worldwide. It is mainly thriving in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, and South Africa. This sport was also reintroduced into the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics and will be continued onto the 2020 summer Olympics. So will the increasing popularity of the sport, it would be important to have knowledge upon the sport. I also talked about this global link with the kids at the program. Many of them did not know that rugby was an Olympic sport and how much is was played around the world. Globally, rugby is ranked at #6, with the second most watched and attended competition that is just behind the FIFA world cup. According to ranker.com in the U.S rugby is ranked as #19 comparing this to the worldwide favorite sport of soccer that is ranked at #5.
What did you learn about yourself?
With this project I learned more of what my weaknesses were. Some of those weaknesses included organization and communication. I learned that those were the areas that I needed to improve upon, which takes me how I improved through this project. I learned that in order to have everything work out you need to have everything planned, to be able to communicate to others, on what I want to accomplish.
How will earning your Gold Award impact you in the future?
It will be a good source that I can reflect upon, and know that if I set my mind to something I can achieve it. I will also have the sense that I did something good for my community before I left for college, and it has inspired me to do more great things for the people around me.
Why do you feel the Gold Award was an important part of your Girl Scout experience?
I think the Gold Award was an important part of my Girl Scout experience because it was a good way to conclude my Girl Scout experience and really put all of the skills that I have learned as a Girl Scout into my Gold Award, but also lead me to be a lifetime Girl Scout.
How did earning your Gold Award help you become a G.I.R.L. (go-getter, innovator, risk-taker, leader)?
My Gold Award has taught me things that I didn’t realize that I was empowered with. The most that empowered me and caused my project to be successful was for me to be a risk-taker. Doing this project, I had to take a risk, that risk was to teach a whole new group of people that didn’t really know the sport of rugby. It was not a easy task. I had to innovate and bring a whole new idea of a sport to a group of people. Striving for my Gold Award helped with that significantly.
**IMPORTANT NOTE: This blog represents only a small fraction of the hard work, dedication, and requirements that go into earning a Girl Scout Gold Award. It is simply a brief summary, which is meant to inspire Girl Scouts to Go Gold in the future. For more information on earning your Gold Award, please email highestawards@gscolorado.org.