The Journey Begins….

Hello!

We are the team for GOLD Rwanda 2019 and cannot wait to tell you some of our journey so far. Here goes….

Back in September 2018, we attended a rigorous and rather unusual selection weekend, known as ‘Go for GOLD’, with the prospect of gaining a GOLDen place on a Girlguiding development project this summer. We were told to ‘expect the unexpected’ and, looking back, the unexpected is certainly what we experienced!

GOLD is an international ‘Guiding Overseas Linked with Development’ project open to all members of Girlguiding aged between 18 and 30. Every year there are eight projects sent out around the world with each team being made up of 6 members (including one experienced GOLD leader). Projects last for around three weeks during the summer/autumn months with the aim to work with and develop the Guiding organisation of the country you are travelling to. From what we have unanimously heard, GOLD projects are trips of a lifetime!

Moving towards Christmas time we were all receiving secretive emails advising us of our selection outcomes and our trip locations. We were so pleased to hear that we were going to Rwanda! But… who were we going with?!

Fast forward into the New Year – we had heard who our team mates were, had introduced ourselves via email and Whatsapp and sent a picture of ourselves so that we could recognise each other at our first briefing weekend in February.

February came around quite quickly, we were all immersed in fundraising, researching Rwanda and preparing for what might be in store for us – then suddenly…. we found ourselves meeting each other face to face on World Thinking Day (22nd February) and quickly started to get to know each other over a tasty chilli and several ice-breaker games.

During the weekend we learnt so much about the GOLD cycle and started to look at what to expect from the Rwandan project itself. Together we produced a ‘charter’ to guide our way – always have fun and laugh lots were both things we included. As a team we organised the key roles that we would have during the project, discussed our hopes, concerns and excitments for the project and started work on our badge, team kit and challenge pack.

Saturday night was what appears to be a GOLD tradition – fancy dress! We had been asked to bring green clothes and a head band and were told ‘you can’t be too green’ but we had no idea what it was for or what we were going to be. Off we went to get ready and then Astronaut Alice came along to find us to take us to Planet GOLD. We were aliens!! We were challenged to accessorize our team so we transformed into alien brides with 3 eyes, veils and bouquets – we won 3rd prize. We space hopped to find moon rock, survived a meteor shower, made space food, competed for ‘Ultimate GOLD Team 2019’ and had loads of fun!

We cannot wait to update you more on our adventures over the next 10 months! We hope you enjoyed reading our journey so far and are looking forward to our next post already – keep an eye out for the updates coming soon….

Kat

Team GOLD Rwanda 2019

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