British Guides in Foreign CountriesRainbows celebrate their 21st Birthday in 2008!
This area encourages games, songs, parties, celebrations, making a mess and enjoying life.
Rainbows learn all the time, both in Guiding and in their daily lives. A Rainbow learns in many ways, such as visiting people and places, having visitors at meetings, being creative, using technology, playing games.
This area allows Rainbows to begin to understand that they are part of a wider world.
This area is the heart of the Rainbow jigsaw. A girl is beginning to understands the concept of 'love' when she joins Rainbows through her experiences of caring and sharing with family and friends, and being kind to others.
There are two strands to the Rainbow 21st birthday aimed to allow as many Rainbows as possible to take part in 2008.
Activate resource
The Activate resource published in guiding magazine in November 2007 will be aimed at providing an event for Rainbows and may be either a day or an Overnight with pages of themes that will interest this age group. This will include Fairies, Animals and Gardens.
The resource will also include the Community Action aspect of the birthday celebrations. This involves the Rainbows planting sunflower seeds and then getting out into their local community to give the plants away wherever they can. Alternatives will be suggested for units that may find this difficult.
Seeds will be given away to Rainbow leaders free with Guiding magazine.
There is huge potential for good PR and challenging public perception during this birthday year.
Purchased resource
This resource is instead of a Roundabout. It is in the form of 21 ‘cards’ each with activities that look forward and challenge and a few activities that look back at the things Rainbows have done in the past. Like a Roundabout, it is still based on the 4 programme areas; Look, Learn, Laugh, and Love. 
‘Olivia’ will feature strongly in this resource. This format echoes the premise of the Rainbow Jigsaw programme; using what we have that is good, and developing new additions. It also contains the Community Action aspect. Girls can wear the special badge when they have completed one activity from each programme area, as in the ‘Roundabouts’. (This badge will be different to the general 21st badge available to all)
The official birthday week will be 3rd to 11th May 2008. This is exactly the same week as the 10th birthday celebrations. It was chosen as it fitted with school dates across the UK. Girls will be encouraged to wear their Rainbow wear to school and will have a letter for Head teachers to support this. It is hoped (but not compulsory) that celebration events will be held about this time.
Click to see our 21st Birthday items for sale
Available on the Guiding Essentials website. All products have been available since August 2007.
A new Rainbow Annual came out in August 2007. This has not been published since 1992.