workshop 4

Making commitments

overview

This session is about co-creating a commitment, contract or code for the Be Her Lead space you share. You will build on your understanding of the fears and issues explored in Workshop 3 to ensure that the commitments help to create the kind of weekly space that the group need and want.

It is important that you help the girls feel joint ownership and responsibility for the Be Her Lead space, and that the commitment you write up is a joint agreement as opposed to rules imposed from above.

The three Be Her Lead values, respect, empathy and bravery, are non-negotiable, but open to interpretation. Emphasise that Be Her Lead in your school is not fixed, but evolving, and that you’ll all be learning how to maintain those values together. There needs to be room for mistakes and learning, but there also needs to be firm boundaries in place to make sure everyone feels welcome and comfortable.

YOU WILL NEED

Flipchart paper and pens
Coloured pencils and pens, paper or card, stickers, glitter, etc.
Printed copies of the Be Her Lead Code (optional)

check-in

Ask everyone to search the room for an object that represents how they envision the Be Her Lead space. Give them a short time limit (3-5 mins) to create some energy in the room.

Examples we’ve seen before include a pot plant, representing growth, a cup of tea, representing warmth, and a rubbish bin, representing a space where you can vent about things that are stressing you out! It does not have to be an object you can pick up – it could be the ceiling, for example.

Go round the circle taking it in turns to share objects and thoughts behind their choice. You could note down or write up on the board any key words or phrases that come up, to refer back to later.

creative activity

Split into 3 groups, and give each of the groups one of the key Be Her Lead values to discuss: bravery, empathy, and respect.

Ask the groups to think about what the word means to them, and what it would look like in practise in the Be Her Lead space. You could give them flip chart paper to make a spider diagram around each of the words.

Come back together and share, using the discussion prompts below as needed. We encourage you to integrate discussion of discrimination into this activity, addressing what the different forms of discrimination are, why they are unacceptable in this space, and how they relate to the Be Her Lead values.

The next step is to turn these ideas into a set of commitments (2-3 for each value), forming your own ‘Be Her Lead Code’. In order to do this you could:

Work as a group to turn the ideas into a list of commitments
Go back into break-out groups and ask for 2-3 commitments per value
Read over our central Be Her Lead Code together, and use this as inspiration for writing your own commitments

By the end of this activity, you should have drawn up a list of group commitments for the space, written on a big sheet of flip chart paper. This is your Be Her Lead Code!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS

Respect

“I love how comfortable we are with each other and how we joke around.”

— Student at Westminster Academy, London

“Be Her Lead means to me that we should co-operatively guide each other. The club is a safe space to me, we can comfortably share our opinions.”

— Student at Sirius Academy, Hull

What does respect mean in practice – in what you say, what you do, how you hold your body, what you do outside the group, etc.
How does it feel to be respected?
How can you show respect to others in this group?
How can you show respect to yourself in this group?

Bravery

When do you feel most brave? Is it often mixed with other emotions? Thoughts? Bodily sensations?
What might feel brave / require bravery in this group? (You could use other words like scary, vulnerable, challenging)
What brave things could this group do together? (An opportunity to think about group goals, future activism or work in the school community)

Empathy

“Be Her Lead means finding out things about people that you didn’t expect to hear / what other people are going through ”

— Student at Dixons Broadgreen Academy, Liverpool

What is empathy? How is it similar or different to pity, sympathy and compassion?
What are the situations in this group where you might need to show empathy? When might you find this a struggle?
We see empathy as the ‘glue’ between the other Be Her Lead values – why might this be?

CHECK-OUT:

Give everyone a sheet to draw round their hands. Fill the hands with words and phrases to show your personal commitments to the space, based on what’s been discussed today.

Examples of personal commitments include “I promise to listen to others”, “I commit to coming each week” or “I will try to leave judgements at the door”. But don’t be too prescriptive with this – an image, pattern or initials / name is fine!

If possible, provide colours, glitter and stickers to decorate the hands, then cut them out.

If there’s time at the end, arrange the cut-out hands round your Be Her Lead Code as a frame – these are instead of signatures showing everyone’s agreement.

We encourage you to keep the code displayed so you can return to it and add / change elements, as your workshops continue.