Milwaukee Girl Scouts Take The Upstander Pledge.
May 4, 2018
Girl Scout of Milwaukee Headquarters
The Girl Scout Headquarters of Milwaukee was the site for a recent GAB presentation. A recent questionnaire sent out to the Girls Scouts asked what kinds of subjects would they like to hear presentations about. Bullying came up as one of their choices. 12 Scout Leaders representing the various Scout membership levels invited GAB to make a presentation at their monthly meeting. Also representing the Scouting organization was Christy Brown, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast, Sue Molina, Director-Girl Scout Leadership, and Wendy Dahl, Director of Product Sales.
Representing GAB were Linda Lee, Executive Director, James Dean, Executive Assistant, and special speaker Michael Turner. Linda Lee described how she formed the organization because of two bomb threats, in two consecutive years at a local high school as a direct result of bullying. “I started to research bullying and burned out two printers collecting great information about bullying. Despite all the wonderful information concerning bullying I was shocked to learn that it was getting worse and had turned into a National epidemic, with bullycide becoming on of the leading causes of death in our middle school age children. I needed to find a positive solution,” said Linda.
James Dean described the positive solution that Linda found that will stop bullying within 10 seconds-upstanders! James said, “If a bystander to bullying becomes an upstander in a non-threatening way, the bullying will stop within 10 seconds 85% of the time. Bullying doesn’t occur in front of the administrators, councelors or teachers. It occurs in front of the students who do not like to see it either. Therefore, the power to stop bullying lies in the hands of the students. That’s what the GAB Peer Ambassador Program does-teach students how to become upstanders”.
Michael spoke about how important the Girls Scout leadership will positively affect our country. “We need you!” he told the girls. “You are our next leaders and our Country desperately needs the positive values and leadership that you are learning as Girls Scouts. We are all Americans and we need to work together to help our country”.
The girls had some great questions at the close of our presentation, and one girl asked how she could become a Peer Ambassador and start a club in her school.
Event Photos.
