Girl Guides keen to be prepared – for safe sex and living with debt

Guides are demanding sessions on how to practise safe sex and assemble flat-pack furniture to ready themselves for life in the 21st century.

They also want instruction on how to manage debts and reduce the size of their carbon footprint as they prepare to enter the adult world.



In the poll, senior Guides, who are aged over 16, said that managing money was the most important skill to master as they contemplated leaving the family home. “Practising safe sex” was placed fourth, with “assembling flat-pack furniture” eighth. Younger Guides, aged from 10 to 15, valued more traditional skills. Top of their list was “cooking a healthy meal” and “pitching a tent”, although “standing up to boys” came fourth.

The youngest Guides, aged under 10, said that they wanted to know how to surf the web safely and how to cross the road.



Girlguiding has undergone several image updates over the past century in response to changing trends. In 1910 members were awarded badges for milking cows and learning to iron. There was uproar when young women were encouraged to go camping and play sport.

Guides still learn first aid and how to cook on a camp fire, but today’s members are also able to earn badges in business and industry skills, making speeches in public and mastering a computer.