In October 2014, as part of the "Growing girls and young women to lead the future Europe” project co-funded by the EYF, WAGGGS held a four day event “Communicating to grow young women’s leadership”.
During this event time was spent on working on a new communications plan for the Region with a special focus on social media and storytelling. The participants were selected following an open call on the basis of their communications skills and experience, experience as youth leaders working at local and national level in their association, and interest in using communications to bring about social change. 9 participants from 8 countries attended this event. Members of the External Relations and Communications Core Group Annie Beckman and Lilit Chilingaryan and Resource Pool Tania Mendes contributed to the work of the Planning Team.
As a result of this meeting, the participants were able to develop key
messages about Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting, which they could also use in
their national context. They received training in how to develop a
communications strategy, analysing their current situation, identifying and
prioritizing target audiences and methods to develop key messages. They
received practical training on communication tools which they could use quickly
and easily to tell a digital story about their organization, as long as they
had identified in advance what they wanted to achieve, understanding the
importance of preparation and planning, and the need to take a consistent
approach.
The
communications plan developed during the meeting, is being implemented in
2015, aiming to increase our presence in social media and target primarily our
members. It also highlights gender empowerment, the value of volunteering and youth
work in society and the skills that youth work provides which can be used in
other aspects of individuals’ lives. The communication tools developed aim to boost
our members to feel positive and engaged and to sense the value of volunteering
and belonging to our youth organization.
Both the key messages and plan developed will positively influence the
strategic communications targets that have been set within the strategic plan
adopted by the Europe Committee.
“Communicating to grow young
women’s leadership”, an event that was part of the "Growing girls and young women to lead the future Europe”
project co-funded by the EYF