Ashleigh Bethea

Well, maybe you need to talk to Ashleigh Bethea, a Durham 19-year-old who recently received a national honor for her effort to instill self-confidence in local teenage girls.

Bethea, named one of the top Girl Scouts in the nation, has been recognized as a Girl Scout Gold Award Young Woman of Distinction for her research and implementation of a local workshop for girls ages 11 to 18.

The project was completed during Bethea's senior year at Northern High School.The Gold Award is given for a 50-hour community service project completed by Senior Girl Scouts, who are in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Her project started after she talked to social workers and counselors at local schools and churches and learned about an ongoing problem with lack of self-esteem in teenage girls, she said.

As part of her project, she put together a 43-page booklet about self-esteem and recruited girls for a four-hour self-esteem workshop held in May.She also arranged for speakers, such as nurses and other health professionals, to discuss the stress of fitting in, the changes that young women's bodies go through and how they can gain the confidence to be themselves.
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After the workshop, Bethea said she was "relieved, because it was a lot of work," and "surprised because a lot of people showed up" and gave her good reviews on the post-workshop survey.

Bethea is the first Girl Scout to receive the honor in this area, Hipp said.
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Bethea joined the Girl Scouts in sixth grade, she said.She thought about dropping out when she was 13, but her mother, who is a Girl Scout troop leader, encouraged her to stay, she said.

"I thought it would make me uncool," Bethea said.But since joining the Girl Scouts, she has completed other projects, as well, including volunteering at a local hospital, cooking for the homeless and collecting art and crafts and cleaning supplies for a local transitional facility for homeless families.

As time progressed, Bethea realized it wasn't that big of a deal, she said.

Now a student at Durham Technical Community College, Bethea said she plans to continue speaking about low self-esteem issues and has been asked to speak to various groups, including local schools and sororities.

And after all the research, the work and the award, the now-lifelong Girl Scout has learned a lesson about herself, she said.

"I learned it is OK to be me," she said.