Long associated with cookie sales and friendship bracelets, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) a new adventure-oriented collaboration with The North Face. With 12 new adventure badges, it will be the largest national organization to offer skills like trail running, mountaineering, rock climbing, and backpacking specifically for girls.
Still in the development and piloting phase, the badges will be available to earn as early as summer 2019 for girls from kindergarten to senior year of high school. The North Face is developing the programming alongside GSUSA, offering its outdoor expertise to the 106-year-old organization. The partnership bolsters The North Face鈥檚 initiative, which aims to elevate the stories of female role models in the outdoors and beyond. GSUSA, for its part, seem to be responding to continued requests for more adventurous and skill-based curriculum.
鈥淲hen we were looking at how we could truly enable the next generation of female explorers, our way forward was really clear,鈥 says Cara Williamson, senior brand manager at The North Face. 鈥淲e wanted to partner with the longest-running and most-established organization in support of the next generation of women. And that was the Girl Scouts.鈥
To earn the badges, the girls will take turns leading and learning teamwork as they discover new outdoor skills. As with all GSUSA programming, girls will meet each requirement at their own pace to complete each badge. According to the Girl Scouts, these new adventure badges will continue to allow girls to take a hands-on role in their accomplishments. GSUSA has yet to release further details on what skills will be offered.
The new badges come at a time of change for both the Boy and Girl Scouts: The Boy Scouts of America started allowing girls into limited programming in October, then changed its name to Scouts BSA in May. The Girl Scouts remain, in the organization鈥檚 words, 鈥渁ll-girl, girl-led, and girl-friendly.鈥 And while it has sometimes been criticized for not serving girls as well on the outdoor-adventure front, GSUSA has a well-documented history of being the organization more willing to make changes for inclusivity. 鈥淸The Girl Scouts] always had more badges than the Boy Scouts. Their variety of activities have always been pretty vast, and this seems like a continuation on this path of variety,鈥 says Kathleen Denny, whose explored the implicitly gendered content of Girl Scout and Boy Scout handbooks and manuals. 鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 really represent a dichotomous shift from a black to white, A to B, or yes to no. I think it seems like a pretty consistent or not totally unexpected continuation of [the Girl Scout鈥檚] evolution, which has been ongoing for some time.鈥
The new adventure badges are also unique in that they factor socioeconomic or cultural barriers to the outdoors into a girl鈥檚 successful completion of the program. For example, while GSUSA owns 427 outdoor camps and more than 180,000 acres of land throughout the country where girls can get outside, scouts can also earn these new badges in less-traditional outdoor environments. 鈥淕irls can do the badge steps with inexpensive, common items they might already own and just go outside,鈥 says Jennifer Allebach, vice president of girl experience at GSUSA. 鈥淥r they can complete them with more sophisticated equipment.鈥
GSUSA also offers outdoor acclimation programs for kids who have never left an urban environment or spent much time in nature. The organization鈥檚 112 regional councils throughout the country determine the needs of each of the troops in their area. Girl Scouts of Greater New York, for example, brings girls from the city upstate to Camp Kaufmann to 鈥渦nderstand and find their balance in nature,鈥 says Meredith Maskara, CEO of GSGNY, in a about the group鈥檚 trip. 鈥淚nstead of just bringing girls directly from the city and throwing them out here in the middle of the woods, we need to acclimate them,鈥 she says.
While the focus of the new badges is on the outdoors, the skills girls will learn through this new programming will extend far beyond the trail or crag. 鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely not restricted to the outdoors, and it shouldn鈥檛 be,鈥 says Williamson of both the GSUSA partnership and Move Mountains. 鈥淚f we can lead the way in the outdoors, because that鈥檚 our world of credibility and authenticity, then fantastic, but we want it to go further.鈥
By expanding the definition of exploration and encouraging outdoor adventure, the new outdoor badges offer Girl Scouts hands-on experience with problem-solving, risk, and creative-thinking skills.
鈥淔rom the Girl Scout perspective, if you can get girls outside to be comfortable in their own skin and develop leadership qualities, those skills are in direct correlation to the experiences they can bring into social settings with their family and friends, even to the boardroom,鈥 Allebach says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e always had the outdoors as a cornerstone of our movement, but we have also always been very interested in and committed to really shaping them into confident women. That鈥檚 our whole goal. That鈥檚 what we鈥檙e trying to build.鈥