Women of Courage Activity

Hi all again, so for our Beehive and Mia maid activities in October we decided to do a type of Women of Courage activity. (We combine our beehives and Mia maids because our groups are small). Moving on, we felt like this probably needed to be a two  night activity, but I'm sure you could use it just for one. We wanted the girls to look up stories of real life princesses and other famous women that needed to have courage in their life at some point. I worried that they wouldn't look up any so I looked up a lot, which was good because none of them did find stories. I brought pictures of Disney princess for them to color while we read the stories. These are the ladies I found info about:

Princess Spy:

Noor Inayat Khan, we’ll call her princess Khan. Her father was born to nobility, and came from a princely Indian Muslim family, and her mother was a descendant of Tipu Sultan. Her father lived in Europe and her mother was American. She took care of her family after her father died. She played the harp and piano, and wrote poetry as well as children’s stories. She wrote Twenty Jataka Tales. After World War 2 started her family fled from Paris to  England in 1940. Her brother and her decided to help defeat Nazi tyranny. In November she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and was an aircraftwoman 2^nd class, she trained as a wireless operator. She then was assigned to a bomber training school, and applied for commission. She was recruited to join France section of Special Operations Executive. In 1943 she was posted to the Air Ministry, Directorate of Air Intelligence, seconded to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. During all of her training she adopted the name Nora Baker. In June 1943 she was named Madeleine a nurse and became a spy under the name of Jeanne-Marie Regnier. She stayed in Northern France. With two other women she joined the Physician network. During the next month all other members of this network were arrested. In spite of the danger she refused to return to Britian. She moved from place to place and managed to escape capture while maintaining wireless communication with London. She refused to abandon what had become the most important and dangerous post in France and did excellent work. She was betrayed by a double agent. In October 1943 she was arrested and interrogated. On her arrest she fought so fiercely that SD officers were afraid of her. She was treated as an extremely dangerous prisoner. Her interrogation lasted for over a month. She attempted to escape twice. She lied consistently during her interrogation to the Germans. In November she, with two other agents escaped and were captured again. She was then moved to Germany and put in solitary confinement as a DWT prisoner (disappearance without trace). She was kept handcuffed there for ten months. In Sept. 1944 she and three other agents were moved to a concentration camp. They were executed, and immediately burned in a crematorium. She was cruelly beaten before being shot. She was 30 years old.

 

Hua Mulan. She is from ancient China. She took her aged father’s place in the army, and fought for twelve years, gained high merit, but refused any reward and retired to her hometown instead. There is a crater on Venus named after her. Her story over time slowly became more of a folk tale than anything. She led armies to war. This is all the information that I could find on her. There are poems, and many different movies made about her including Disney’s Mulan.

Joan of Arc is a folk heroine of France and a Roman Catholic Saint. She was born a peasant girl in eastern France. Claiming divine guidance she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years’ war. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English in exchange for money, put on trial for charges of insubordination and heterodoxy, and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was 19 years old. 25 years later she was pronounced innocent, and declared as a martyr, and named a patron Saint.

Amina of Nigeria, led warriors into battle and built walls around all the villages. She was also known to be a Huasa Muslim Warrior Queen of Zazzau. There is a claim that she was the first to establish government among them. She was a conqueror, and ruled for 34 years. She was a fierce warrior and loved fighting, even as a child was caught holding daggers. She helped Zazzau become the center of trade and gain more land. Her mother died when she was 36 years old leaving her to rule.

Pin Yang of China, started a women’s army. She helped her father, emperor of the Tang Dynasty, to seize power and eventually take over the throne from Sui Dynasty. In 617 her father as a general was planning to rebel against the Emperor and summoned his daughter and son-in-law from the capital to ensure their safety. Her husband did not think that they would be able to escape together, and she told him to leave first since it would be easier for her as a woman to hide. He left, and she hid, but then paid several hundred men with her wealth and received their loyalty, raising support for her father. She sent her servant to another rebel leader to join her, and persuaded other rebel leaders to join. She attacked and captured nearby cities and gathered a total of 70,000 men. Peasants saw her army as one of liberation and offered food and drinks as they passed by. She helped command one of the armies as they traveled towards the emperor where the throne was yielded to her father. She was made a princess.

 I also found different versions of well known Disney princesses.

One such story is of Nyasha. The story comes from the book of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, an African Tale. Pretty is as pretty does or rather beautiful is as…or is it beauty is only skin deep? No matter how you look at it, beauty will only carry you so far because at some point you will reveal your true self once you open your mouth or come in contact with another person. Mufaro has two equally beautiful daughters named Nyasha and Manyara. He loves them both and believes their beauty transcends their personalities such that only a king could choose between the two of them.

Nyasha is kind and loving while, unbeknownst to Mufaro, his daughter Manyara is spoiled and selfish, and cautious to never behave like that around her father. It is the villagers and Manyara’s own sister, Nyasha, who experience Manyara’s difficult and unkind behavior. Because of her love for her father, Nyasha never reveals the treatment she receives from Manyara, which only goes to her credit as a loving daughter whose beauty is also in her heart.
As we read the book, we get to see examples of Nyasha’s gentle spirit and joy for life through her hard work and song. During the course of one day, she comes across a friendly garden snake who later becomes a constant companion for her as she tends her garden. Later in the book, we come to learn how important this snake truly becomes to Nyasha. When the king announces he is looking for a wife, Mufaro immediately packs to travel the next day to the city with a wedding party made up of friends from the village. He believes certainly, one of his daughters will be chosen to be queen. Mufaro is not alone in his belief that one of them will be chosen, and Manyara thinks it should be her, so she sets out the night before the wedding party to appear first before the king.
On Manyara’s trek to the city, she comes across a hungry boy with whom she shares nothing, ignores the advice of a wise old woman, and later disrespects a “man with his head under his arm.” Manyara’s concentration is on self and she is determined to make it to the city to become queen and the concerns of anybody else are of no importance to her.
The wedding party leaves the following morning convinced Manyara is already on her way and comes across the same people whom Manyara also crossed. This time, the boy is fed and the old women is heeded to by Nyasha, which leads Nyasha on a different path to the city; she never crosses the headless man. Once arriving in the city, they are greeted by Manyara who comes running out of the palace crying hysterically about a “snake with five heads.” Nyasha leaves her sister in the care of her father and proceeds into the palace only to be greeted by her gardening companion, the garden snake who reveals his true identity and all the other ways he appeared to Nyasha. A real prince can determine true beauty and only desires a real princess with a kind and loving heart inside and out.

For stories such as snow white I found many. We know the Disney version: Beautiful girl, beautiful woman. The woman becomes jealous hires someone to kill her, he can’t, and she goes into hiding. She meets seven dwarfs who take care of her, and warn her. She doesn’t heed the warning, allows the old lady to trick her, she takes a bite of the apple, and she “dies”, but not really. The dwarves think she is too beautiful to bury, and so they make a glass coffin, where a prince finds her, and gives her a kiss. This in turn brings her back to life and they live happily ever after.  I found many stories similar, but with different culture twists. If you are interested in reading other versions—such as the Grimm brothers version these are titles that you can look up for them: The Crystal Casket (Italian), Maria, the Wicked Stepmother, and the Seven Robbers (Italian), The Young Slave (Italian, Giambattista Basile, Il Pentamerone), Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree (Scotland), and Little Snow-White (Germany, Jacob and Willhelm Grimm.) It is interesting how many of them don’t contain magic at all, and how Disney puts a “magic touch” in it. Sometimes these stories don’t need Disney to change them.

I then talked about a different princess and had our girls try to guess who this princess was. (It was them obviously, but we were trying to get across the point that they are all princesses), and that many times they will need courage in their lives to stick to the right: 

These Princesses are well known. Their father is someone that many love, many despise, and many even think that he has never existed. There is a lot of documentation that says that he has existed, but many scholars disagree about the validity of each. I am going to go with that he is a real king. Because of those that despise him and disagree that he even exists it is challenging for these princesses many times to even accept that they are who they are.

One princess is steadfast and strong. She is independent and confident. She is honest. She is original.(C.M.)

(R.P.)Another princess is quick to laugh, and is quick to be a friend. Her laugh is contagious. She is very loving and smiles easily.

(N.C.) The third princess has a lot of perseverance. She is also very helpful and dependable. She has her own style.

(J.R.) The fourth princess is steadfast, and immoveable. She is confident in who she is, thoughtful, caring, and optimistic. She is full of spirit.

 (K.M.) This fifth princess always seems happy. She is sweet, and funny. She is determined, and willing to try hard things. She is compassionate.

(S.T.) a sixth princess is strong and tough as nails. She is easy going, and has a huge smile.

The last princess I wasn’t able to find as much information for. However, I do know, that She is beautiful, and unique, but few know that. She needs friends, and is scared to attend things that she does not know anyone. She is shy. She is struggling. Even when she needs help she will not ask for it. Although the king was very happy with his other daughters for how strong they were, and the potential they had…he always worried about this princess. He wanted all of his daughters to have good relationships, and to be strong together.  He wants each of them to have their castle and knight in shining armor. He worries that this princess will not make it there. He will always hope that the other princesses will help this princess if they can.

 SECOND NIGHT:

For our second night we had the girls dress up as a kind of princess they wanted to be. We had one come as a samurai, another as a spy, one as a fluffy pink princess, and a few others. We then went outside and took photos of them posing and actions shots. It mostly turned into fight scenes, against me...anyways, then it turned into a dance party, but it was still a lot of fun and I'm impressed with these girls day in and day out.