Community Service Vs Take Action
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Those are great examples of community service projects that produce short term impact. Community service provides valuable opportunities for Girl Scouts to explore and contribute positively to their communities.
When Girl Scouts are earning Journeys and the Highest Awards it is time to look deeper to create Take Action Projects, which have longer lasting impact.
The Journeys, Take Action Awards and Highest Awards (Bronze, Silver & Gold) fall under the category of Take Action projects that encourage Girl Scouts to employ critical thinking skills to identify the root causes of community issues. Take Action Projects address these root issues with long term solutions, helping the community through direct action, education and advocacy.
While they may include community service elements, the core of a Take Action Project is finding long-term solutions.
Think you understand?
Test your skills!
Have Take Action Project idea?
Give your Take Action project the test!
Ready to teach your troop how to spot the difference or take their projects to the next level?
Here are some tools to use at your meetings.
Build the skills to think beyond community service.
Start by having the Girl Scouts brainstorm a short list of ways they would like to help their community. You can use the community projects from the chart or think back to service they have already done.
Start with community service projects.
Then ask questions, such as:
How could we make what we do last longer ?
How could it have a bigger impact or reach more people ?
Who else could we get to help us ?
Who could we teach to do the same thing we did ?
SKILL OR LEADERSHIP COMPARISON
Ask the girls to make two charts.
Chart 1 ( Community Service ) List the skills they would need to volunteer at an event.
Chart 2 ( Take Action) List the skills they would need to plan an event and invite others to be the
volunteers under their direction.
The example below was created by Senior Girl Scouts (9th-10th grade) during a Girltopia Journey.
They used attending a beach cleanup (Community Service) VS organizing and running a monthly beach cleanup (Take Action). You could do this exercise with any of the examples in the charts from this page.
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INTERACTIVE ACTIVITY
Matching "game".
Suggested directions:
Print out & cut up the "cards" below.
Form even teams.
Chose the number of examples you will use based on group size.
Each girl takes a project description & decides which side her project belongs in, the CS group or the TA group. (Hint for them - There should be the same number of girls in each group.).
After identifying their group, each person should find one in the other group whose project either expands on theirs or demonstrates more leadership and problem-solving. Sometimes the TA project is a different way to approach the same topic.
The list includes letters for easier "partner" identification. For a greater challenge, remove the letters.
| cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.pdf |
| cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.docx |
