G Day: A Day For Girls, Sunday, Nov. 2, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia. The champions portion is being held from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Tickets: $75 for girls/$25 for champions. Sponsored tickets available. gdayforgirls.com
The African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child," has a special meaning for Madeleine Shaw, so much so that the social entrepreneur kept it at top of mind during her development of G Day: A Day For Girls.
The inaugural edition of the day-long self-esteem and leadership event aimed at those aged 10-12 was held in Vancouver in April. Based on its success, G Day is back in an expanded format, incorporating caregivers this time around, and being held Sunday, Nov. 2 at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts.
Shaw was inspired to launch the initiative out of an interest in filling a void that she herself had felt in adolescence. "When I was that 10, 11, 12 - just-comingup-on-puberty-type age - I was really excited about it," says Shaw, a Richmond resident and owner of Lunapads.com, an e-commerce retailer and manufacturer of natural feminine hygiene products, co-founded with Deep Cove's Suzanne Siemens.
"I thought the idea of becoming an adult and hitting puberty was really amazing and a wonderful, exciting thing. But when it happened, nothing really happened. I felt sort of deflated even though I had all of the information I needed. I had great books and my mom told me everything, but. .. on an emotional level I wanted to have the sense of specialness that I felt reflected back to me somehow, by my family or by my community," she says.
That feeling has long stayed with Shaw and she created G Day to see if she could do that for girls today, particularly as she's currently the mother of a nine-yearold daughter. "I thought wouldn't it be one thing to do something like that in my family for my daughter, but wouldn't it be wonderful to do it as a community," she says.
In addition, she felt strongly about the importance of preparing young girls for the challenges they're set to face as teenagers.
"They're about to enter a culture of social comparison and competition as teen girls that is going to teach them that their bodies are not right in one way or another and that they need to have more friends or they need to be different than they are. I feel like by approaching girls at this particular stage in life and really instilling in them that they are amazing exactly as they are and doing it in this very unique container, it leaves an emotional imprint for them that I hope they carry through the rest of their lives to help them maintain their self-confidence and improve their self-esteem. And, to remember that who they are exactly as they are right now is amazing and perfect and wonderful, as hard as life can be sometimes," she says.
The inaugural G Day was a sold-out affair with 250 girls in attendance.
"It was remarkable," says Shaw. Participants engaged in a variety of activities and discussions, including those addressing issues like body image, self-esteem, leadership, puberty and the future. "It was a mix of both really important life conversations, and dancing and yoga, and some treats. It was a bit of both - it's a very fun event, but it's also a very thoughtful one as well," says Shaw.
New this time is the participation of people who care for young girls (that could mean biological parents and guardians, grandparents, godparents, elder siblings, aunts and uncles, etc.) invited to attend as "champions" for a 90-minute portion of the afternoon. "You're not just showing up for one girl, you're showing up for an entire generation," says Shaw, explaining she's interested in having the champions in attendance so they can, as a group, "be there to literally welcome the girls into adolescence."
"I feel like by getting together to honour our girls as they transition into adolescence, it's a way for us as a community to lift them up and to be that village, if only for a day," she adds.
Shaw is excited about the calibre of speakers and musicians lined up for next weekend's event.
"We're trying to address a diverse bunch of topics and ideas and (have) role models that we're hoping will inspire, or reassure or just entertain or warm the hearts of the girls and help them feel like whatever they're going through, they're not alone, they're in a community and there are lots and lots of people who care about them and are here to support them," she says.
A number of North Shore women are being featured, including entrepreneur Andrea Scott of Skoah, musical group M'Girl Music, and Alex Mazerolle, who will be back for the second time. The founder of Girlvana Yoga lives in Vancouver currently, though grew up on the North Shore, and co-owns Distrikt Movement in North Vancouver.
Mazerolle is pleased to be returning to G Day, having thoroughly enjoyed the inaugural event. Girlvana Yoga caters to teenage girls, offering yoga classes and retreats for those ages 13-17, so Mazerolle was pleased with the opportunity provided by G Day to work with younger girls.
"I was so impressed with how open and excited the girls were, mature, and how ready they were to hear about yoga and meditation. I was actually really pleasantly surprised. They were very receptive," she says.
In her presentation, she plans to try and introduce the practice of yoga and meditation with a goal of making it more accessible to those in attendance. "A lot feel like yoga is something that their mom does and something that's not for them, so it's sort of gearing yoga and speaking their language and how yoga can help physically, mentally and emotionally," says Mazerolle.
"Getting girls at that age before they enter into high school and the stakes get a little bit higher, to plant the seeds of consciousness and mindfulness at a younger age, I think is so, so important. I just jumped at the opportunity to be able to offer that again this year.
Anything that Madeleine and Suzanne and Lunapads are behind, I'm always behind. I love the work that they do," she adds.
Shaw hopes G Day continues to grow and serve as a social movement. She plans to continue offering G Day events in Vancouver, with the next approximately a year away. She's also working to offer events in Victoria and Calgary in 2015, and possibly Toronto.
"We've got some pretty big goals," she says. "We feel like we've hit on something really timely that's a unique way to support girls' self-esteem in a community-based sort of way. There's lots of great programs in schools and lots of great things that parents are doing and this is just a supplemental experience where the girls can be in this notion of a community container in this virtual village, if you will for a day to support them emotionally."
