Furthering its mission to empower young girls and adolescents in the emirate tap into their fullest potential and shape holistic personalities, Sharjah Girl Guides (SGG) has recently concluded eight expert-led workshops geared towards enabling Senior Guides, Guides and Brownies to strengthen both their intellect and creativity on their journeys to becoming the future leaders.

Covering a range of topics including leadership, effective ideation and mind mapping, art and craft, Arabic calligraphy, astronomical sciences, and more, the workshops were interactive and action-oriented, allowing participants to truly explore their unique talents in a variety of areas.

The workshop titled ‘Guides – Leadership 101’, for instance, was a rigorous 12-hour course that introduce Guides to different leadership styles, and taught them the key tenets of good leadership, including taking initiative, developing creativity, communication skills, decision-making and problem solving. Successful participants earned SGG’s Leadership 101 badge.

Another interesting workshop ‘Explore your Mind’ offered Senior Guides a basic introduction to the concept of mind mapping. Juliana Khalil, a licensed lifestyle coach, taught participants how to employ different techniques of mind mapping to avoid distractions and centre their focus on their goal, achieve better productivity and master their young minds. SGG’s Social Skills badge was awarded to successful participants along with a certificate from Tony Buzan, the inventor of Mind Maps.

Brownies got busy with several workshops designed especially for their age group. These included a Palestine-themed workshop during which they discovered the beauty of the Palestinian olive tree and showed them how artists incorporate this symbol of national pride in their paintings. As part of the workshop, attendees replicated these tress using a new technique of cotton ball painting. The young attendees we awarded SGG’s Palestine badge for their successful participation.

A creative mix of sessions witnessed the young SGG members try their hand at illumination art used in Arabic calligraphy; learn how to design a terrazzo tray using interesting techniques of casting sanding and colour mixing; and mixed the skills of art and planting by drawing keffiyeh on pottery pots and sowing the seeds of a highly treasured variety of oranges from Palestine’s Jaffa region in the gardens of Sharjah’s House of Wisdom.

An exciting workshop organised at the Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Science and Technology took Guides and Senior Guides on an astronomical journey through space, offering them an opportunity to observe the movement of the sun, moon and other celestial objects through different times of the day. They also learned the names of different stars and constellations and explored the beauty of the night sky.