Girl Guides of Canada drops “Brownies” name

The Girl Guides, Canada’s equivalent of the Girl Scouts, has renamed its Brownies branch to become more inclusive, after current and former members who are people of color said the name caused them harm.

Girls in the branch, which is for 7- and 8-year- olds, will now be called Embers after an online vote by members, the Girl Guides of Canada announced Wednesday.

“Our vision is a better world by girls, and that means by all girls,” Jill Zelmanovits, CEO of Girl Guides of Canada, said in an interview Thursday. “So if we were not including a certain portion, or if girls were feeling like they didn’t belong, we wanted to change so that as many girls as possible could be members of the organization.”

The Girl Guides announced in November that it would be retiring the Brownies name to create a more welcoming atmosphere. A few weeks later, members were asked to vote online for the new name, either Embers or Comets. The organization said it had about 58,000 girl members and about 15,000 adult members, most of whom are troop leaders.

The names of the other branches — Sparks, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers — will remain the same.

Zelmanovits said that the organization first became aware of objections to the Brownies name after the murder of George

Floyd in May 2020 set off global protests against racial injustice.

She said that former members shared stories about not wanting their daughters to join the organization because of their own experiences with the name. Others said that they had joined as Sparks, left the Girl Guides and returned after Brownies or waited to join the Girl Guides until after they had reached an age that would allow them to join a branch other than the Brownies.

“It was a surprise to many people,” Zelmanovits said. “We hadn’t seen the name necessarily in that light as causing harm.”

She said the organization had prepared to have difficult conversations about the name change and created a specific guide for leaders who would need to explain it to the girls in the affected branch.

“They were the ones who had the least difficulty with it,” Zelmanovits said. “When the leaders sat down and started having the discussions at a very basic level and said, ‘Some girls your age don’t feel like they belong because of the name,’ the girls were just immediately: ‘ You should change it.’”

The name change will be phased in over a few months.