If the girl scout uniform is not quite to your taste, and those other girls? groups involve a little too much roughing it, then Finesse Productions might be the answer.

Finesse Productions is the extra-curricular answer for the girl who is looking for something a little bit more stylish. Finesse Productions is not ashamed to be girly.

The girls, ages eight to 16, learn things like etiquette, personal hygiene and how to set a table. They learn about the career choices available to them, and the group takes a special interest in modelling and fashion.

?In short, they learn how to be young ladies,? said group founder, Terry-Lynn Weeks, teacher and acting deputy principal at Clearwater Middle School.

?Finesse Productions is an improvement programme and basically geared towards their social development, etiquette and modelling,? said Ms Weeks. ?It is about making them well-rounded young females.?

Girls from any school on the island, public or private, can join Finesse Productions. Members are broken into two groups, Fly Girls for the older girls and Diva Girls for the younger ones.

Although Finesse Productions nurtures the girls? interest in style and fashion, it also helps them to see that they are members of a community. Finesse Productions encourages its members to do community service and think about their own futures.

Akira McDonald, 12, spent a day volunteering with Meals on Wheels.

?I helped with Meals on Wheels, because they needed one extra person to help,? said Akira. ?I wrote a letter to Meals on Wheels asking them if I could help and they wrote a letter back saying they accepted.

?I think a lot of people were old and they were happy to get the meals. They said, ?oh thank you very much for bringing me my dinner?. It made me feel good.?

Ms Weeks and another Clearwater Middle School staff member, teacher librarian Bernadette McIntosh-Tucker said the group was formed in 1998 because as teachers they could see a need in their female students? lives.

?We felt a need to do something like this,? said Ms Weeks. ?The girls learn life-skills while having fun, basically. We can incorporate the fashion side of it.?

Mrs. McIntosh-Tucker said the problems of young boys often get all the attention in the community, but girls need guidance also.

?Boys? problems are sometimes more visible,? said Mrs. McIntosh-Tucker. ?Girls have problems too, but they are often not as visible to society. Working with the girls day to day in the school system there are certain things that are highlighted.?

This summer one of the older girls from Finesse Productions will get a very special opportunity, an internship at Yves St. Laurent in New York City. This was achieved with the assistance of Shiona Turini who currently works for Yves St. Laurent.

?She recently came to talk to the young ladies,? said Ms Weeks. ?We like to bring in positive people to talk to them.?

?The internship requires you to write an essay on why you think you should be chosen,? said Kimeka Simons, 15. ?It requires that you have to be 15 years old by July. I want to do it to learn about fashion. I think it would be a nice opportunity for me to experience.?

Brittany Wolffe, 15, said she found the talk by Ms Turini to be inspiring. ?I would like to have something to do with fashion when I am older,? she said. ?I was inspired when Ms Turini came and spoke to us because I really enjoy fashion.

?She works with the big clothing lines. She has a lot of designer stuff. I don?t necessarily wear it all the time but I like that kind of thing. So I was really interested.?

The group isn?t always fashion oriented. The younger girls did not hear Ms Turini speak, but instead, they learned about the Brangman Home.

?It taught me about girls who need a little bit of help in their life,? said Akira. ?They have problems at home, so they just need somebody to be there to help them out.?

Each year Finesse Productions concentrates on a different industry, with a view to educating the girls about the different career opportunities that are out there.

They have had the police cadets come and speak to them. They have learned about the hospitality industry and visited different departments in the hospital.

?We do a whole spectrum of things,? said Ms Weeks. ?We work on communication skills, and personal development. We have a guest speaker in to talk to the girls. We look at physical care and hygiene. It is like a charm school.?

The girls also do fun things such as a scavenger hunt. They are currently learning about what goes on behind the scenes at a fashion show.

?I think that it feels like a big family,? said Jahshuna Furbert, 15. ?We have a support group. They are behind you.

?They help you with things in the future. If you want to study fashion, they will bring someone in to talk to you about it. The same for doctors and things like that.?

DeAzha Chambers, 12, said through Finesse Productions, she had gained more confidence in herself.