For her Gold Award project, local Girl Scout Ava Lombardo hosted a self-defense and safety clinic for high school students, college students, and young adults entering the workforce on Wednesday, July 22, in Newtown High School's side gymnasium.

Thirteen people aged 15-25 got to learn standing self-defense skills to neutralize attacks and control an assailant, along with personal safety and security, defensive and offensive techniques, and situational awareness and mental self-defense strategies.

Leading the workshop was special guest instructor Caroline Degon, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, master educator, two time world-ranked Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor, and health and wellness leader.

Degon guided everyone in warm-up exercises before diving into proper self-defense techniques. A core aspect of self-defense, Degon said, is "squaring up" with your attacker. She had a student stand in front of her and used her as an example.

"I would never turn my back against her, I want to face her," Degon explained. "So, we're gonna face our hips forward, right leg back, hands up, and we're gonna move like a fighter."

From there, Degon taught everyone how to use their full body to punch, strike with their knee, and jab with their elbows. She also evoked Bruce Lee's "be like water" mentality, telling everyone to keep their upper body loose while having their weight be pushed through their lower body.

Degon noted the importance of establishing a base; the lower a person positions their hips or center of gravity, the harder it is for something to knock them off-balance.

Participants got to partner up with each other and practice these techniques, along with several more, to get some real self-defense training.

Everyone answered two self-defense surveys, one before the workshop and another immediately afterwards. The pre-class survey asked participants how often they go out alone after dark, how often they use rideshare services like Uber and Lyft, and how confident they feel about protecting themselves in a dangerous situation.

The pre-class survey also asked people if they have ever been taught self-defense, what situations scare them the most, and what they hoped to learn in the class.

Before the workshop, Lombardo and her mom, Debbie, ran an informational table at the back of the high school's lobby. On the table were informational flyers about the class, along with a flyer for The Center for Empowerment and Education, a domestic abuse treatment center in Danbury.

A Lasting Impact

The Girl Scout Gold Award is considered the highest and most prestigious award in Girl Scouting, comparable to the Boy Scouts of America’s Eagle Scout merit. To earn a Gold Award, Girl Scouts must identify an issue in their community and address it with a project that has a sustainable, long-lasting impact.

Lombardo, as a member of Girl Scout Troop 50611, has worked to help underprivileged communities and the groups that serve them. One of these groups is The Center for Family Justice, a domestic abuse treatment center in Bridgeport, which she worked with a few years ago to make a library for one of its safe houses.

Between this experience and preparing for college, Lombardo realized how important it is to her that people can protect themselves in dangerous situations.

Earning a Gold Award is easier said than done, however; Girl Scouts have to undergo an intensive journey badge process, a training session, and submit a proposal to the Gold Award Committee. Once approved, each project must involve a minimum of 80 hours of work.

Lombardo was not alone throughout the process. Her team leader for the project was Newtown Police Officer Stephanie McDermott, who is also Newtown High School's school resource officer.

McDermott said the workshop was especially important after an incident in Southbury on July 13, in which a 23-year-old man was accused of attacking two young girls in an attempt to sexually assault them at Kettletown State Park.

"The two young girls did whatever they could to try to defend themselves against that person, so you might think, 'Oh, it's never going to happen to me. I'm not gonna be able to do anything,' but it's really important to know how to defend yourselves in case," McDermott said.

She said Lombardo held several planning meetings, brainstorming how to make her idea come to fruition. McDermott noted that, although people can be attacked by strangers, they can also be attacked by someone they do know.

"So you can't be scared to defend yourself," McDermott said.

Lombardo shared to the class several statistics that indicate campus sexual violence is a pervasive risk. On college campuses, 13% of all students experience rape or sexual assault, with rates even higher for undergraduate women (26.4%) and students with nonconforming social identities (21%).

Statistics show that 26.4% of female and 6.8% of male undergraduate students experience rape or sexual assault involving physical force, violence, or incapacitation.

Statistics also show that 9.7% of female and 2.5% of male graduate and professional students experience rape or sexual assault involving physical force, violence, or incapacitation.

To Protect Oneself

Lombardo also reached out to Degon, who traveled all the way from Massachusetts for the workshop, to be a special guest for her event.

Degon said she uses her 15 years of experience in Brazilian jiu-jitsu to teach others how to defend themselves. She called Brazilian jiu-jitsu a martial art dedicated to help leverage the situation of being attacked and having to deal with it.

What drew her to it over 15 years ago was how it is made for smaller people to defeat larger opponents.

“And as a woman that was also attacked getting out of college, I realized I spent my whole life dedicated to academics, and I knew nothing about how to protect myself,” Degon explained. “So, I sought after a martial art, to learn my body, learn how to defend myself in such a situation, and I found Brazilian jiu-jitsu.”

What came after, Degon said, was her leaving a career in education and science leadership to embolden herself in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She has gone on to train and compete all over the world, even teaching classes from California to the New England area.

Degon has taught police officers, schools, colleges, and corporations, but said her focus is with female empowerment and training. This way, they can not only walk around safe against physical attacks or threats, but they feel empowered to strengthen themselves in all areas of life.

“Whether you’re going to go into college or a new career … or just enjoying life, it truly empowers you to be safe and secure in yourselves and know how to be warriors in life,” Degon told the group.

Lombardo, who wanted people to walk away from the experience knowing how to defend themselves, said the survey results did not really surprise her. Everyone pretty much felt the same as she did: unable to protect themselves if it ever came down to it.

According to Lombardo, only one person noted that they had experience with physical self-defense, so beyond that one outlier, nobody had any prior experience.

"And that is exactly why I did this event, so we could create an opportunity for people to not only have the skills, but have the confidence that they can use them in a real-life situation," Lombardo explained.

After reviewing the post-class survey responses, Lombardo felt everyone gained a solid baseline for self-defense and had a foundation to build off of if they ever choose to do so. The key to this, she said, was having participants get hands-on experience with different people throughout the workshop.

Lombardo said she feels relieved having another portion of her Gold Award project behind her. She noted that the hardest part of the event was pushing it out to her community and others.

"The anticipation of the event, hoping that it would run smoothly, that we would have enough people signed up, and actually having all of those people present was a heavy weight to carry up until this point. However, now I am focused on the sustainability portion of this project, which I know will require just as much determination and work in order to make it possible," Lombardo said.

From here, her goal is to implement some sort of class or assembly into the Newtown High School curriculum/schedule, so future students have the chance to learn how to defend themselves.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.