by Krysta Coyle
Girl Guides of Canada’s Guiding Ambassador

It’s human nature to want to make an impact in this world. To feel like you’re making a difference. To feel like you did something that mattered. Yet sometimes – depending on the current news cycle or the social media whirlpool – it can feel like you’re not making any headway at all. The good news? As Girl Guides, we’re creating a better world through our actions every single day. And that’s an amazing thing.

Whether through individual actions or collectively, girls and women in Guiding are changing the world in big and small ways. Every time a Spark makes a new friend feel comfortable by telling a silly joke. Every time a Guide creates comfort kits for children living in shelters. Every time a Ranger can talk openly with her peers about gender-based violence. It all makes an impact.

As mentors and strong female role models, our volunteers have an immeasurable impact by offering a safe, inclusive space where every girl is welcome – where every girl can discover the world she wants for herself and her peers.

This World Thinking Day, the theme for the global Guiding community is Impact. At Girl Guides of Canada, today is particularly meaningful as we announce our new Vision and Mission:

Vision – A better world, by girls.

Mission – To be a catalyst for girls empowering girls.

Combined, our Vision and Mission create a powerful chain reaction, sparking extraordinary opportunities for girls in Guiding. Because girls have the potential to shape a better world – as today’s change makers in their own Girl Guide units, schools and communities and as our future innovators, lawmakers and CEOs.

On World Thinking Day, I’m fiercely proud to stand with the 95,000 Girl Guides in Canada and the 10 million girls and women who are part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). Together, we are making our mark, making an impact and striving for a better world, by girls.

A world where gender isn’t a disqualifier.

A world of equal possibilities for all girls.

A world where girls and women lift each other up and empower those around them.

A world where every girl can be Everything she wants to be.

That’s the power of each of us in Guiding – every Spark, Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder, Ranger and adult volunteer.

Krysta Coyle is Girl Guides of Canada’s national Guiding Ambassador and currently lives in Halifax. She is a PhD student at Dalhousie University studying breast cancer biology.

Check out Krysta’s World Thinking Day video: