What Is Young Women in Excellence?

What Is Young Women in Excellence?
Young Women in Excellence is a celebration of Personal Progress at which young women share a Value Experience or Value Project they have completed during the year. It is usually held during Mutual at the ward level, but it may be held at the stake level.

Why Do We Have Young Women in Excellence?

The purposes of Young Women in Excellence include the following:

Help acquaint parents with the Personal Progress and Young Women programs.
Give recognition to each young woman and help her recognize the value of Personal Progress in her life.
Share the vision of Personal Progress with parents.

When Is Young Women in Excellence Held?

Young Women in Excellence is a culminating event held toward the end of each year. The date and plans should be announced early in the year.

Who Is Invited to Young Women in Excellence?

Young women, their parents, and priesthood and Young Women leaders are invited to Young Women in Excellence.

How Do We Plan Young Women in Excellence?

Adult leaders work with young women to plan Young Women in Excellence.

At the beginning of the year, leaders encourage each young woman to give serious thought to which value she might focus on for this event. She may work with a family member, another young woman, or a specialist on her project, which may take several months to complete.

At the event, young women share a Value Experience or Value Project they have completed during the year that exhibits excellence. The event could include talents and skills young women have developed through working on Personal Progress during the past year.

REMEMBER

YWIE is supposed to be a celebration of what they have ALREADY done – not something extra

I think one thing to remember is the YWIE is supposed to be a celebration of  what they have ALREADY done – not something extra.  If they have completed a  value experience involving giving a talk in church, they could display the talk  or recite part of it during the program.  If they performed a service project  in January for a value project, they could show some pictures of the activity or talk about it.  Even if they are only part way through a project, like creating a quilt, I think the girls could display that.  Since they are supposed  to be working on PP all the time, YWIE shouldn’t be something they have to get a new idea for.

I believe we both as leaders and girls make YWIE too difficult (I was as guilty as anyone).  It kind of becomes more of a “talent show” (and even sometimes one-upmanship) than just a simple display or demonstration of what they have been working on.  I think that’s why you hardly ever get projects for Faith & Integrity because they aren’t as showy as say a Knowledge project of dancing.

This lesson really hit home about two years ago when I saw that the display tables were more “all about me” than actually about PP.  Last year, my new Beehives who had only been in YW a few weeks simply wrote a paper about the Proclamation and put it on the table – that was their display.  I thought it was great and met the purpose.