Cambridge, OH – On Tuesday, November 22, twenty-nine female students from several schools across Guernsey County attended the first Guernsey County Girls’ Empowerment Day event hosted by the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center’s (ECOESC) Educational Services Department at Pritchard Laughlin Civic Center. 

The five-hour workshop kicked off with icebreakers to help the students feel comfortable talking with each other. The first game had the students standing in a circle where they introduced themselves to each other by giving their name and listed something about themselves that started with the first letter of their first name. Then, they partnered off with people they haven’t met yet to ask each other questions and get them comfortable talking with each other and continued to rotate allowing the students to have short conversations with multiple people. The final ice breaker as a whole group challenged the girls to line up in order based on birthdays without speaking out loud so they had to communicate and organize using different methods.  

Students were split into six random groups to rotate through six different stations where they did different activities in the small group setting. Before working on the stations each group did a bonding activity game amongst themselves called “the floor is lava” and had to find a way to fit everyone in their group on a 11×17 sheet of paper. This activity allowed the ninth graders to embrace their creativity while working together to find a solution. 

The first task that each group was charged with was assigning roles to each member in their group: a reader/facilitator, time keeper, instigator/encourager, and a materials manager/notetaker. Each role had to perform certain tasks during each station to keep the group on track. 

Each station promoted the overall theme of leadership and empowerment and building a sense of community amongst those in attendance. At station one the students filled out online personality quizzes and then discussed the findings with each other. Station two was a situational accommodation exercise focused on empathy and the students learned the differences between being an introvert and an extrovert. The topic for station three was active listening where they practiced being both speakers and listeners. The fourth station concentrated on teaching the students about having their voices heard through performing a 1 minute, 30 second paper bag speech. The fifth station zeroed in on how everyone’s different identity impacts how they experience the world around them. At the final station the students addressed the topic of self-awareness and self-advocacy and how to ask for the things they want. 

Between sessions the group got to hear from speaker Nicole Huey MSW, LISW-S, Chief Operating Officer of Southeastern Ohio Counseling Center. The main topic was about how to build confidence in yourself, how to build it in others, and where confidence comes from. She touched on the idea what we generally measure ourselves against others and that by doing that we can easily diminish our self-confidence when instead we should think about how everyone has their own special skills and talents and not a single person is good at everything all the time and that a piece of confidence is knowing your worth is not dependent on being good at everything. Another focus was on how mindset has a big impact on outcomes and accepting that we are able to grow and get better at things and that initial failure does not mean that you are a failure. The confidence in our ability to improve can help equip you with the tools you might need later.