Around the world

Articles

• 12 March 1912

  Juliette Gordon Low starts Guiding in the United States

  Low adapted the British Guide model for American girls. Her troops, first called Girl Guides, became Girl Scouts in 1913.

• 1924

  The first World Camp at Foxlease

  In 1924 Foxlease, the Guides' new training centre in Hampshire, hosted the first World Camp alongside the Third International Conference. By WAGGGS's count, 1,100 girls and young women from 40 countries attended.

• May 1926

  Thinking Day is chosen

  At the Fourth International Conference, held at Camp Edith Macy in New York State in May 1926, delegates agreed on an annual day for Guides and Girl Scouts to think of each other: 22 February, the shared birthday of Robert and Olave Baden-Powell.

• 1928

  The World Association is founded

  At the Fifth International Conference in Hungary, delegates from 26 countries formed the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), with its secretariat in London.

• 31 July 1932

  Our Chalet, the first World Centre, opens

  A centre near Adelboden in the Swiss Alps for international gatherings, the first of what are now five WAGGGS World Centres.

• April 1942

  The Guide International Service

  A scheme set up in 1942 to select and train volunteers for relief work after the Second World War. Its teams served from 1945 in Europe, Egypt and Malaya.

• 31 October 1860 – 17 January 1927

  Juliette Gordon Low

  Founder of Girl Scouting in the United States in 1912, who adapted the British model for American girls and paid for much of its early growth.

• 22 February 1889 – 25 June 1977

  Olave Baden-Powell

  Chief Guide from 1918 and World Chief Guide from 1930, a much-travelled leader who held Guiding's international network together through visits, letters and ceremony.

• 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941

  Robert Baden-Powell

  Army officer and founder of Scouting, who set out the girls' scheme with his sister Agnes, wrote Guiding's handbooks from 1918 and signed them as "Founder".

• Practice

  Camping and the outdoors

  Freedom, managed risk, rural citizenship and, for some girls, exclusion. How Guide camps were run and regulated, where they happened, and who could go.

• Essay

  Empire and internationalism

  Guiding grew up inside the British Empire and became a world movement. How much did the move from empire to world association change, and who decided?

• Essay

  War and service

  In two world wars Guides grew food, raised money, carried messages and, after 1945, worked in relief camps across Europe and beyond. How much did girls actually do, and how do we know?

• Theme

  Empire and decolonisation

  Guiding was born in imperial Britain. How did imperial ideas shape it, and how did national organisations adapt, remake or reject the British model?

• Around the world

  Guides or Girl Scouts?

  Why some countries say "Guides", others say "Girl Scouts", and why the world association uses both.

Country case studies in preparation

• United States

  Why “Girl Scouts”; Juliette Gordon Low; the relationship between GSUSA and WAGGGS.

• India

  Colonial branches, Indian leadership, independence and the Bharat Scouts and Guides (formed 1950; the Girl Guides Association joined in 1951).

• Canada

  Empire, Indigenous residential schools, the June 2021 apology and the 2023 change from Brownies to Embers.

• Kenya or Ghana

  A locally commissioned history of independence and African regional leadership.

• Poland

  Founding claims, nationalism, war and exile.

• Philippines

  Josefina Llanes Escoda and wartime resistance.

• Hong Kong

  Late-colonial citizenship and the 1997 transition, drawing on Tracy Leung’s 2026 research.

• Australia and New Zealand

  Early adoption, changing Promises and programme restructuring.

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