Girl Guides going strong

"‘Are Boy Scouts and Girl Guides still around?’ people ask me with bewildered looks on their faces,” says Jasmine Wadia, a flock leader with the 71st East Bombay Zoroastrian Guide Group since 1996. A flock leader is an adult leader for Bulbuls, the youngest ones in the Girl Guide movement between six and 10 years of age, she informs Parsiana. "For those who have not experienced being part of it, scouting and guiding begins and ends with tying knots and having campfires… however it is a much wider program which trains children to step out in the world as confident, skilled and compassionate human beings,” she elaborates.
Wadia explains the genesis of her Guide Group: "At the annual prize distribution ceremony of the Young Zoroastrian Society (YZS) for 1988-89, then vice chancellor of Bombay University and an active member of the Girl Guide movement of her time, Dr Mehroo Bengalee, impressed by the work of 16th East Bombay Zoroastrian Scouts, suggested that YZS should also start a Guide Group for Parsi girls. This suggestion was taken up by veteran scouter Kersi Jilla and in 1993, 71st East Bombay Zoroastrian Guide Group started functioning.” Till then, YZS had focused only on nurturing the Boy Scout group under them.
On August 12, 2017, Wadia’s Group marked their entry into their 25th year with a flag hoisting and an investiture ceremony where eight Bulbuls, five Guides and five Rangers were welcomed into the fold, "followed by some revelry,” she notes. The venue of the ceremony was the Pirojsha Godrej Scout and Guide Pavilion, where weekly meetings of the Group are conducted every Saturday from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

The Group has, besides the Bulbuls, Guides who range from 10 to 18 years and Rangers who are women between 18 and 25 years of age. The 79-member Group includes adult leaders who are called Guiders, Wadia explains. Other key members are Group Leader Mackie Majra, who has been part of the Group since its inception, and Binaifer Kandawalla, Guide Captain since 1999. Veterans Majra, Wadia and Kandawalla are Himalaya Wood Badge Holders, "which is the highest level of training for adult leaders in the Scout and Guide Movement,” says an enthused Wadia.
"We conduct two camps in a year and an educational tour every three years,” she details. Guides being trained to compete for the President’s Guide Award have to give 48 hours of service at any of the community centers and are therefore, at present, placed at Asha Daan — Missionaries of Charity, Seva Sadan and Vatsalya Foundation. Under Majra’s leadership, "our guides collect old clothes which are then sent to Zoroastrians in rural areas. Every year our group sponsors a navjote ceremony of a Zoroastrian child in October,” Wadia ends.