TeamGirls
Rebecca Sparrow welcomes #TeamGirls
12 May 2017
Rebecca Sparrow is Suncorp's Team Girls ambassador and a best-selling author, columnist, podcast host and passionate advocate for teenage girls. Bec regularly visits high schools to present to students and has developed resources to help girls navigate through their formative years.
Follow Bec's work on Facebook or visit rebeccasparrow.com. You can even catch Bec on the Team Girls in 10 podcast series.
When I was fifteen if you’d asked me what my life purpose was, I would have mumbled something about marrying Kirk Cameron and working as a children’s TV host. Neither happened (I blame the corkscrew perm and stone wash jeans. Thank you 1987). But still back then if I had a “purpose” I figured it was to be a reporter on Wombat or Simon Townsend’s Wonder World.
Thirty years later and my answer is crystal clear.
These days I feel like my purpose is to help teenage girls traverse that tricky path from childhood to adulthood. My purpose is to help teen girls (and their parents) navigate high school friendships, have a more positive experience online and understand that despite what society tells them they are enough just as they are.
"I feel like my purpose is to help teenage girls traverse that tricky path from childhood to adulthood"
It's why I write books like Find Your Tribe and Ask Me Anything.
It’s why I go into high schools and talk to teenage girls about resilience and giving back and the idea of your high school legacy and – most of all - the power of finding those friends who like you for who you are and have your back.
And it’s why I’ve agreed to be an Ambassador for #TeamGirls – an initiative put together by Suncorp, Netball Australia and ReachOut, Australia’s largest online youth mental health organisation.
They came to me and said this initiative isn’t about financial services. Or netball for that matter. It’s a group of organisations coming together to ask: How can we help young girls feel confident? Confident about their bodies. Confident about their abilities. Confident with money. How can we help our girls navigate the mixed and confusing messages society fires at them? What part can we play to teach them about friendship and being role models for each other?
So, I said: You had me at hello.
As part of my work with #TeamGirls this year I’m going to be writing stories, creating a podcast, hosting events and generally encouraging all of you to be a part of the #TeamGirls movement. If like me you want our daughters, our granddaughters, our nieces and goddaughters to feel confident in their own skin, to have the skills to navigate high school friendships, to know how to tap into that inner grit when life throws them a curveball, to back their opinions and their ambitions and to support each other to be the best they can be – well, congratulations.
Welcome to #TeamGirls. Let’s do this.
If your child, or anyone you know is having issues with self-esteem, confidence or mental or physical health, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.
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