Brownies are flying high for new badge

And three Brownies from 5th Stopsley Brownies, in Luton, took a trip to London Luton airport last week to find out more about the new Aviation badge and what it takes to be a pilot.

The girls, Emma and Daisy aged 9 and 10 year old Tylah got to explore the easyJet cabin simulator, including the real-life replicator cockpit with two of easyJet’s female Captains, Marnie Munns and former Brownie, Kate McWilliams.

The girls asked the Captains all about their jobs, from the qualifications needed to how many flights they made each day - and jumped at the chance to find out what all the different buttons in the flight deck do.

The partnership is the first to be announced as part of Girlguiding’s biggest ever overhaul of badges and activities which will be revealed in full this summer. As part of this new programme, easyJet is sponsoring a new Aviation badge for Brownies.

To earn the badge, girls will challenge themselves to think of 40 things that fly and put their engineering skills to the test, creating their own aircraft experiments with different building materials, structures and launch techniques.

Emma said “I’m so excited for the new Aviation badge and to learn more about flying and being a pilot. It’s really great that we get to find out about exciting jobs we could do in the future.”

The partnership has the potential to introduce 200,000 girls aged seven to ten to aviation and it is estimated that tens of thousands of girls will undertake this badge in its first year.

Jess Bond, lead volunteer for Girlguiding’s Programme Renewal said: “We are incredibly excited to be working with easyJet to empower the next generation of girls and young women to start a career in aviation. We know from our research that younger girls aspire to all types of careers, including becoming a pilot. However, in reality, only about 4% of pilots are women. Our partnership will help to tackle the gender stereotypes girls often face as they get older,”