Girl Guides

: The Girl Guide movement was originally founded in England in 1916 by Lady Baden-Powell, wife of the founder of the Scout movement, Lord Robert Baden-Powell. In Newfoundland, Girl Guides was officially started in 1923 and had strong connections to the Guiding movement in Great Britain until 1949 when the Girl Guides joined the Canadian Guiding movement, following Confederation. The Province was then divided into ten Guiding areas. In 1964 a Provincial headquarters was established in St. John's, housing the Provincial Office, the Archives, a Guide shop, and a meeting room. By 1982, the movement owned nine campsites within the Province located near Manuels, Pippy Park, Labrador City, Placentia, Heart's Content, Trinity, Marystown, Corner Brook, and Rattling Brook. Eventually Girl Guides was designed to aid young women to grow into responsible citizens; the training programs were geared to generate self-motivating skills and to teach specific skills needed as adults. A girl could begin Guiding as a BROWNIE (age 7), then the girl progressed to GUIDES (age 9-12), then to PATHFINDERS (age 12-15), then RANGERS (age 16-17), and CADETS (age 18+). Ideally, at this final Guiding level, the girl was a mature and responsible woman and could move into society as an independent adult.