World girl guides conference to be held in Cyprus

A woman-led youth organisation aspiring ‘to help every girl thrive’ is hosting the biggest ever conference held in Cyprus by volunteers.

The Girl Guides Association of Cyprus (GGAC), which provides informal education to girls and young women aged five and older, has been chosen through a competition to organise the 38th World Conference of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts-WAGGGS.

The event is expected to bring 570 representatives from 118 different countries to the island this month to discuss ways to help create the environment to ensure every girl’s right to a bright future.

Held between July 26 and 31 at the European University in Nicosia, the conference has the theme ‘Dream, Act, Lead: The future is ours’. As the GGAC explained, the World Guiding Movement, through its member organisations, offers girls the values and the experience they need to act, grow, thrive and lead the effort for a better tomorrow.

“The vision of WAGGGS and its member organisations is an equal world where all girls can thrive and act in prosperous conditions. It aims to be a girl-led movement by 2032, where any girl and every girl can lead and feel empowered to build a better world together,” GGAC press release said.

This parallel commitment to sustainability was combined in the chosen logo of the world conference, depicting a cyclamen.

Based on a painting by nine-year-old Danae Constantinidou, the logo incorporates light, symbolising the sun rising for a common future and Cyprus’ national flower, the Cyclamen Cyprium. The specific flower, often found in the crevices of rocks, symbolises for the Girl Guides “how the beauty of nature is never weak, even if it looks so, but it can find and give life anywhere, even on a rock”.

Moreover, the word cyclamen is derived from the Greek word for circle, that can be seen as a reference to “the circle of never-ending life, and the never-ending bond that guides share”.

The opening ceremony for the conference will be held at the ancient theatre of Kourion on July 26. It will be preceded, on July 25, by a preparatory workshop for young delegates, which will be organised at the Larnaca Municipality Multipurpose Centre.

All plenary conference sessions will be interpreted through interpretation headsets.

Girl Guides have over a 90-year tradition in Cyprus as the first teams started operating in 1930 under the then British administration, right after the birth of the movement.

For more information visit https://www.cywagggs2023.com/