Katie Jenko
Web Editor
Saturday, Feb. 21, nearly a dozen students woke up early to spend the morning with over 100 Girl Scouts. The students gathered to facilitate World Thinking Day, an event aimed at honoring and recognizing Girl Scouts in other countries. This event, incorporating Girl Scouts from ages ranging from 8 to 16, was led by one of the Denison community’s very own: Jordan Berger ’15.
Berger and the other student volunteers ran a variety of projects and activities designed to broaden the horizons of the young Girl Scouts. This year’s theme as reported by the Girl Scouts’ national webpage was meant to focus on the “United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal 2, to achieve universal primary education and is especially focused on making sure girls have access to education.”
The website said, “Educating girls is one of the most powerful and effective ways to reduce global poverty.”
Normally, the event is set up in the likeness of a world’s fair, where booths are used to exhibit different countries/continents or the UN-mandated Millenium Development Goals. Reflecting on this traditionally set-up Berger said “I felt that both of these approaches encouraged girls to think contrary to the modern world; because of globalization and migration, physical borders between countries no longer necessarily correlate with identity, culture, language, ethnicity, etc. I wanted the girls to think more critically about their world in regards to global themes that tie us together and how malleable the world really is…” With this in mind, Berger maintained the world’s fair concept but changed the booths to reflect separate global themes instead.
According to World Thinking Day participant Jackson Wu-Pong ’15, “Since these girls aren’t quite ready to study abroad or work in a foreign country, World Thinking Day provides that initial jumping-off point and sets the stage for future development in our increasingly global society.”
The website promotes this day as a chance to “celebrate international friendships” but as one can imagine that can easily be turned into something “cheesy.” Wu-Pong praised event coordinator, Berger, for “revolutionizing” the event. “Jordan was able to make this year more about developing a global perspective in all of these girls as they go through Girl Scouts and high school in Central Ohio.”