Neighbor News
Be Your Own Superhero
This article is about my Girl Scout Gold Award, completed during September in the town of New Britain, CT.
My name is Samantha Traunfeld, and I have been a Girl Scout in New Britain for 13 years. This year I put a great deal of effort in to earning my Gold Award. The Girl Scouts’ Gold Award is the highest award Girl Scouts can earn, through leadership and hard work on the girls behalf. Each girl must work on identifying an issue within her community and finding a creative way to help solve that issue.
The issue I worked to help fix was rape and sexual assault. The way I went about doing this was taking certain techniques I had learned through training in karate and building a curriculum to teach young people in my community. The main idea of the seminar was that the techniques being taught would be quick moves that you can learn in one day without needing prior knowledge or training.
The seminar also went over different tips to avoid putting yourself in the situations where rape and sexual assault occur. Some of the tips were to be aware of your surroundings, walk with confidence, never go out alone, and avoiding more dangerous areas of town. The participants left the presentation with knowledge of basic self-defense techniques and a new confidence in themselves.