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Girl Guide from Nanaimo recognized with national Change Maker Award

Alex Brick, 12, one of four girls her age across Canada to receive award
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Alex Brick, a 12-year-old from Nanaimo, has been announced as a 2020 recipient of Girl Guides of Canada’s Change Maker Award. (Photo submitted)

All Girl Guide badges and pins are well-earned, and a Nanaimo Girl Guide will receive one that’s especially coveted.

Alex Brick, 12, was recently selected as one of only four Girl Guides of Canada in her age group to receive the 2020 Change Maker Award.

“The award recognizes girls across all branches as they take actions, small or large, local or international, community-based or far-reaching,” notes the Girl Guides of Canada website.

Brick, going into Grade 7 at École Hammond Bay, helped to create the Human Rights Club at her elementary school when she was only in Grade 4, and has been involved in fundraising, awareness efforts, a clothing drive and more. She’s raised money for the local SPCA branch and for Me to We and has participated in making bag lunches and cards for people experiencing homelessness.

“My friends and I may be kids, but I’ve been helping out long enough to know that even the smallest acts of kindness can make a big difference,” she wrote to Girl Guides of Canada in her nomination.

Roisin Mulligan, Brick’s mother, said the Girl Guides program opens up opportunities for learning, being creative, building social skills, performing community work and more, and is “very girl-empowering.” She said during the COVID-19 pandemic, members of Brick’s Girl Guide group were mailed “giant packages” of guiding materials and kept up weekly Zoom meetings.

Mulligan said she thinks Brick will continue to be motivated to try to make change.

“There’s more great things to come … I’m so proud and excited for her,” Mulligan said. “I know there’s a lot of girls doing the same kind of thing and that’s what I said to her friends: ‘You’re all change makers.’”

READ ALSO: 12-year-old from Ladysmith gets government to give Girl Guides same school credits as boys’ groups

READ ALSO: Nanaimo event brings together more than 1,000 Girl Guides



editor@nanaimobulletin.com

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