'You actually are beautiful': YWCA camp shares empowering lessons

A summertime camp in Regina is promoting positive messages for young girls.

The YWCA's Power of Being a Girl camp, for youngsters aged five to 13, is taking place in one-week sessions with different age groups participating during the week.

Everybody is beautiful no matter if they're tall or short.- Brooklynn Brennand

"It's all about empowerment and being a girl and what that means," Kendra Strong-Garcia, a program director at the YWCA, said.

This week the program included talking about self esteem, bullying and body image.

"Beautiful is what you are already," Myra Tucker, 7, said. "Maybe you wake up and you go to the mirror and you just feel like 'Oh, you don't look good.' But you actually are beautiful. Everybody is beautiful."

Youngsters wrote positive messages on small notes and shared them with people at the farmer's market in downtown Regina Wednesday morning.

"We want the girls to be able to share the messages we taught them," Strong-Garcia said. "We're talking about redefining beauty and what does beauty mean. Not necessarily what beauty has been taught to us through the media."

She said it is important to give girls that message at a young age.

"They're bombarded with images from the media every day, over and over," she said. "So talking to them about what real people look like and what real beauty is, is really important at a young age."

The youngsters also learned about fairness and bullying.

Her daughter, Edyn Strong-Garcia, 9, is in the camp and shared an experience about joining an all-boys football team.

She said she was reluctant, at first, but found she had a great time.

"We're all learning the same skills and we're all working as a team," she said.

Brooklynn Brennand, 10, said she has already learned a lot this year's camp.

"I feel that everybody is beautiful no matter if they're tall or short or skinny or fat," she said, adding that what makes people beautiful is how kind they are.