Canadian Down Under

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Girl Savvy

Today was Girl Savvy day - and I've got to tell you - I'm exhausted!

My company being the community-minded company that it is - gives every employee one fully paid work day to do some kind of volunteer work, at the employee's choosing. Now most departments/divisions do something as a group, but a few weeks back I got asked to be part of a program that the Department of Women (yes, the Australian government has a department of women - do all countries have that??) runs called Girl Savvy. What is it? Well, I'll just quote:
Girl Savvy is an innovative one day workshop for young women with the aim to inspire, motivate and educate participants on the importance of being economically empowered and financially
independent.


You know, it was great. Really great. As part of the program, the girls are separated into groups of 6-8 girls and each group has a mentor work with them throughout the day. The mentors are business women from the workforce from a variety of occupations. Today - we had an entrepreneur, a horse trainer, a juvenile detention officer (didn't the girls behave today!), a professor, an executive assistant, a freelance photographer, a consulate person (what should I call her?) and a finance person (me). Just having representatives from such a wide range of industries and occupations showed the girls the variety that's out there - without us even needing to say a word.

And the girls? Well they were great. A little withdrawn at first - but on the whole, really interested - which is not the easiest thing to get 14-16 year old girls to be! They participated, they created products to sell, they did presentations (most of which were littered with giggles and blushing, but still done nonetheless...)

The best part of the program was the budgeting exercise. They had to pick a profession, then they had to choose what kind of life they wanted - ie. own a home, a car, shop a lot or a little, buy groceries or eat out - that kind of thing. After they had decided what they wanted, they then found out how much everything cost. One girl in my group had picked a job that paid $1,800 a month after tax and after subtracting all her expenses found she was over budget by $1,800. She was devastated that she wouldn't be able to afford clubbing every night of every weekend....

It was a huge eye opener for many of the girls when they discovered how little hairdressers made (which is what at least 50% of them wanted to be... and that childcare workers made even less, which is what another 40% of them wanted to be...). It made them think about their choices again. What they wanted to do with their lives - live big and expensive or do what they love or think about finding a way to do both.

What a great exercise - one I wish someone had taught me young. Well, I did understand that I couldn't spend money I didn't have - but I didn't understand the importance of saving at that age.

I meant to go back to work afterwards, but six hours with 15 year old girls? I'm exhausted!

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