Arborg Collegiate hosted a Girls Talk program last Wednesday in conjunction with Creative Community Promotions to address a number of challenges facing girls in high school.
Arborg Collegiate principal Krista Borgfjord said the school’s first-ever Girls Talk event was tailored to the needs of their female students. And the school plans to continue holding smaller sessions throughout the year.
“Myself and two of my teachers, guidance counsellor Rachel Orbanski and resource teacher Haley Fisher, recognized there was a need for some support to the female students in our school,” said Borgfjord. “We decided to begin with a one-day event to kick things off and follow up with mini-sessions throughout the year.”
The school launched a Girls Talk program after seeing an increase in mental health concerns and concerns with female peer relationships.
“Rachel, Haley and I had concerns about positive peer relationships within female social groups in our school. We also have noticed a trend over the past few years of increased mental health concerns in our student population,” said Borgfjord. “As women ourselves, we recognize that girls and women often do not take the time to take care of themselves. Through personal experiences we also know the importance of strong personal support systems and women supporting women.”
Some of the challenges faced by high school girls include balancing academic work with extracurricular activities, jobs and family commitments, said Borgfjord, as well as being “constantly being bombarded by social media pressures,” social media negativity and trying to figure out who they are as young women.
All female student in grades 9-12 were invited to attend the one-day session, which was held at the Arborg Community Hall.
Borgfjord said she and her two teaching colleagues were involved in planning the day, but they hired Samantha Hampton, owner and creative director of Creative Community Promotions, to coordinate the guest speakers and come up with questions for them.
Hampton said being a girl in high school is “tough,” and everyone she asked to participate agreed that there are so many pressures on girls as they try to figure out what lies ahead.
“I reached out to my entire female network to say we need to come together for the high school girls,” said Hampton, who also moderated the panel discussions. “Each of the speakers brought something different to the discussion.”
Hampton also invited the owner of Gimli’s Hidden Treasures to do an art workshop with the students to let them express themselves. Other workshops included a yoga session and a self-care workshop that was offered by a Gimli resident with previous experience working with youth.
The students heard presentations from three speakers: former RCMP officer and professional consultant and coach Sherry Benson-Podolchuk, social worker and therapist Sarah Pinsent-Bardarson, and Canadian-Metis curler and women’s national champion Kerry Einarson.
The three women also took part in a panel discussion, answering questions such as how challenges can be turned into opportunities for growth, how to overcome setbacks, what a personal support system can look like, how to encourage open communication, how to resolve conflict, how to promote diversity and inclusion, how to cultivate leadership skills, how to accept one’s body and the benefits of working with a team.
After the event, Borgfjord shared some feedback from the students. They said they learned about self-care and coping mechanisms, about other people’s personal experiences and how they dealt with problems, breathing and yoga calming, and ways to express themselves. What they found most motivating was watching and listening to others be passionate and vulnerable, sitting beside and interacting with girls they didn’t normally talk to and listening to the speakers who made it easy to share feelings and thoughts.
“The goals of our event were to create a positive and empowering environment for teenage girls, to promote unity and bolster a more supportive and inclusive peer environment, to foster personal growth, and to provide education to our young women,” said Borgfjord.
The school recognizes that male students face struggles similar to female students but generally don’t want to talk about these challenges.
“We do hope to plan an event for the male students at some point this year, though it will look different than our Girls Talk day,” said Borgfjord. “We will need to get some input from our male population before planning an event that is meaningful for them.”
Express Photos By Rayme Thomson
