#LeadersOfAruba Now and In The Future

One of the aims of our project was to develop the leadership skills of existing and new adult leaders and those of older Padvindsters and Pioneers in Aruba. During our trainings and other activities we've met so many amazing current and future leaders who we haven't been able to showcase in our blog posts so far. Soon we will depart back to the UK, but the APG continues working year round and below are just some of the awesome women who make that happen:

#LeadersOfAruba #3 and #4

Next up in our series of #LeadersOfAruba, we have two leaders who have made our stay in Aruba extra special and fun, especially at camp last weekend. First up is Annelien.

On day one, Annelien picked us up from the airport and helped us to find our accommodation. Throughout our stay she's been at many of our sessions and activities, giving us a chance to learn from each other during the project. She took the lead on the logistics of our camp at Papaya Ranch, enabling us to focus on the programme. Everybody we have come across on the island seems to know Annelien (from the members of Quota Club to the dean of the University) and she uses these contacts to provide even more amazing opportunities for the Padvindsters in Aruba.

The second leader we want to mention in Rose Ann. At camp she got the girls organised at mealtimes and to carry out their chores, and we saw a little of her competitive side as she joined in with our peg collecting wide game. Early on, Rose Ann helped Pippa to complete her project challenge as she attended a previous World Scout Jamboree in the Netherlands. Through the conversations during project and activities we've run with young women about international opportunities, we've found plenty of Padvindsters who would be delighted if she lead a group of them to the next World Scout Jamboree in the USA in 2019!

To both of these leaders we want to say thank you for helping to make our project a success so far and for the opportunities you offer to the girls and young women of Aruba! 

If you have a skill, resources, or a small amount of time that you too could give to support Het Arubaanse Padvindsters Gilde, then we have a fun session planned this evening at YMCA San Nicolas (6-9pm) where you can find out more and get a taste of girl guiding and girl scouting. 

#LeadersOfAruba #2

In the second instalment of our #LeadersOfAruba series, we want to introduce you to Mirtha who has been our superb tour guide and a great support during our stay in Aruba.

Mirtha is a leader with the Dakota unit and has been a joyful presence at all of our trainings so far in Aruba ensuring we have plenty of water and/or ice tea to drink. She's also been making sure we get to discover the island, its culture and heritage: on Sunday, after our sessions with the leaders, she took us on a tour which included both the most northern AND most southern points of the island, and last night accompanied us to the Carubbian Festival in San Nicolas. Mirtha's supporting us again this weekend at camp and we're grateful for her loan of camping equipment as we only packed sleeping bag liners in our luggage.

The APG is looking to recruit even more leaders, and we'll be running two sessions next week for new volunteers. Check out our Facebook page or comment here for more info.

(Recruiting More) Leaders of Aruba

Aruba has so many amazing volunteers working to support the work of the APG, and during our three weeks here we want to introduce you to some of them. So we will be taking portraits of some of the inspiring leaders we meet and telling you their stories. First up we have:

Angela, 18. Angela met us at the airport when we first arrived, helped to orientate us to the island and then participated in both days of our training for leaders this weekend. She has been involved in the APG for 13 years and is now a confident young woman preparing to vote in the elections for the first time. She now uses the skills she learnt as a Padvindster in her role as a Pioneer and leader with younger girls.

In order for APG to grow and for more girls to benefit from what guiding and scouting can offer, the organisation are looking to recruit more volunteers. We explored some of the ways we might do this in our second day of leader training and here we’ve created a list five of the ways we use in the UK that we talked about with links to useful resources.

1. Flyers, posters and postcards. In the training we talked about the value of talking to people face to face about guiding, but then being able to give them a business card or a flyer so they could get in touch again and find out more. In the UK, our guiding shop make posters, flyers and postcards that can be ordered for the cost of postage so that local units can use them to recruit more girls and adults. A selection of these can be viewed here
2. Presence at events. Having a presence at events is a great way to be seen. In the training we talked about national days and annual holidays like Mothers’ Day when APG members wear their smart uniforms and are visible in the community.
3. Social media and videos. We also discussed how we can use video in particular (through social media) to enable more people to see what guiding is all about. We showed two videos from Girlguiding UK (this one and this one) as inspiration, and Angela made this awesome one of our training session.
4. Involving students. Rachel talked about how her county in the UK work with the local university to encourage students to volunteer and Girlguiding UK have published this advice. Leaders were keen on this idea and thought it might also work well at the university in Aruba. 
5. Building a website. We find, in the UK, that its really useful to have a website where you can keep information about who to contact about joining guiding, what it’s all about and upcoming events. There’s some easy to use free hosts on the internet like this blogger site that our blog is hosted on, or www.weebly.com have some free packages.

Do you have any top tips on recruitment? What’s worked for you? Add them in the comments on here, Facebook or tweet us!