Coping course for Brownies

Press, 30 June 1988, Page 9

Coping course for Brownies

As her "back-home project” the New Zealand Girl Guide Association’s national training committee has asked Judith Hoban to prepare a syllabus for a family life education proficiency badge for Brownies.

“These are really important things that we are dealing with and I think it is important that we keep in front of us the stresses and the things that kids are expected to cope with.

“For example, youth suicide. When I was 15 it was never talked about and now it is not at all uncommon.”

She hopes the badge will increase the childfen’s awareness of themselves and their place in the family unit. It will also develop their understanding of family relationships, and help them develop the skills to deal with their own family later in life.

“There is so much pressure on kids to achieve and so many parents work. There is less time for relaxing, such as going on picnics.” Delegates at the convention were taken on several visits to nearby towns. It was during these that Judith Hoban witnessed the sharp contrasts between life in South America and in New Zealand.

During a tour of the new housing area in Cuernavaca, the city in which the event was held, she discovered there were no

streets, water, or sewerage.

Work was scarce and the residents spent between 10 and 15 per cent of their wages buying water which was usually unclean and caused a high rate of gastric diseases.

“I couldn’t cope, and the delegates from Central and South America could not understand why because they see it every day.”

Although school is compulsory in Mexico there is no policing of the law. Often children as young as five are kept at home to look after their younger brothers and sisters while their parents work. The contrast between great poverty and great wealth struck Judith most during a visit to Taxco, the centre of the silver industry.

The guide leaders decided to take a look in a church with a gold altar, but to get in they had to step over a beggar woman at the entrance.

For all their problems, she found that most of the Mexicans seemed happy and accepted their way of life.

Judith Hoban made many friends at the convention, and has been receiving mail from all over the world since her return.

"I feel very strongly that I would like to go back to Mexico — I think I may just about have converted my husband to going too.”