“We also wanted to have our own set of trainers, equip them to train and guide young girls to express themselves and dream big.During one of the camps that she supervised in Klang, Selangor, Mangles was shocked to find the influence of street gangs among some of the girls. “One of the girls was bragging about the gang that she belonged to and this soon prompted another girl who is from a rival gang to start an argument about which gang was better. Soon the group split into two and the situation escalated quickly and we had to intervene,” she said. The girls were from Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang, two areas notorious for their rival secret societies. “The cold war between the two girls continued to the second day when physical activities were carried out as part of the camp. One of the activities involved crossing a small water body. One of the girls from gang A tried to swing on the monkey bar but failed and fell into the water. She was reluctant to try again and refused to cross over,” Mangles recalls. “Then expectantly, a girl from the rival group got into the water and told the girl to climb on her shoulder and cross over. Everyone was shocked but the episode became a turning point for all the girls as they began to leave behind their issues and started to interact more freely,” she said.
