We have been working towards a badge called ‘Changing the World’, part of this badge involved finding out about the difficulties faced by people who unfortunately find themselves Homeless usually through no fault of their own.

We have found out about some of the difficulties faced by these people and no doubt there were a lot we never learnt about.

Although regrettably we are unable to resolve this situation in society we would like to show at least some of these people that we do care and do understand some of the problems they are meeting.

As a unit we have been collecting soaps and toiletries to make small overnight bags for some of your guests. We have added a pair of socks to these bags as we feel that although this does not solve the problem of homelessness everyone feels a lot more comfortable in clean dry socks.

We would like to wish all you guests a Peaceful Christmas and we all hope the New Year finds them the answers they are looking for.

We also made Christmas Cards with lots of glitter and feathers to give to the homeless.

On one of the snowy days before Christmas the gifts were delviered to the Winter Comfort Drop in Centre on Victoria Avenue.

Histon Guides took part in the Giant Sleep Over - which is an event run by .

This is done in order to break a world record of children holding sleep over at the same time in order to get into , and also to raise money for .
The event is sponsored by lots of different organisations including;

At the end of the sleep over the girls were all given a goodie bag.
We invited our Guide friends form North Cambridge to join us and registered 33 people as taking part.

After blowing up our mattresses and making our beds (with a great deal of help form parents) we went outside to build fires in order to cook our tea. We then attempted to cook some bread rolls on the fire in our oven - 90 minutes later we did have something that resembled bread!

After tea we played a couple of games run by one of our Guides who is working for the Baden Powell Award then we moved back inside to begin to make our Turks Head Woggle (we make new woggles at all sleep over events).

To raise money for  This year we decided to have a sponsored sing, so we went out side to build a campfire and start our singing.

At about 10.30 we went back inside to get ready for bed - once in bed we learned about  MUAC bands (MUAC stands for Middle Upper Arm Circumference). This is used to measure the circumference of a child’s upper arm, to assess whether a child is malnourished

At 11.30 it was time to start our MIDNIGHT FEAST. After this the lights went out and the girls went to sleep (well some of them did others managed to talk and talk and talk - I believe the last girl was quiet at 3.45 and the first girl woke at 5.45!! - the rules say that you have to have the lights out for 7 hours - but luckily they don’t actually say that you have to be asleep :-).

In the morning we woke and after packing away our beds we had breakfast that was sponsored by .

At 8.30 we took part in another attempt to get in to .  This was the   Minty Mouth Challenge - simultaneous tooth brushing for two minutes.

Next we made cards to sent to the Prime Minister about outlining the work of .
We then moved outside and sang a few more action songs and handed out the goodie bags.

The girls were collected at 10.00am and most likely went home to sleep for the rest of the day.

“Send a girl to school and watch her change the world”.  Oakington Brownies were very sad and upset to learn that in Africa many girls don’t get the chance to go to school.

The CAMFED  project works to raise awareness and funds for girls education in Africa and the Oakington girls learned about Abigail.  When her parents died,  her grandmother took her in, but could not afford to send her to school.  With help from Camfed she has now completed her secondary school and is top of her class in business school.  The Brownies held a tea party to raise money for this project.  They were very pleased to raise over £100.  This would pay for at least 3 months of Abigails education, or for 7 girls to go to secondary school for 1 month.  As well as raising money, the Brownies worked on their hostess badge and, as you will see from the photos, had lots of fun.