By: Blonde Two
I had the absolute pleasure a few weeks ago to be working and relaxing with and around an impressive group of female outdoor leaders. All six of us had spent a considerable amount of women-years supporting and encouraging young people to enjoy the outdoors. I couldn’t begin to count the number of youngsters that have benefited from this but I did do some other counting and found out that, between us, six outdoor women had:
Worked outdoors with young people for a total of 96 years
Worked outdoors with young people in twelve different countries:
England, Wales, Morocco, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Peru, Spain, Costa Rica, the Indian Himalaya, the Canadian Yukon and France
Taught an amazing range of different outdoor and outdoor related skills (I took the indoor skills out because the list was so long)
Land navigation, scuba diving, underwater navigation, on the water navigation, rescue diving, first aid, life skills, dinghy sailing, power boating, paddle sports, leadership, maritime skills, camp skills, expedition skills, international expedition skills, outdoor cooking, wilderness camping and media skills
Worked with at least ten different outdoor youth organisations
Girlguiding, Scouts, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, World Challenge, Jubilee Challenge, The Ten Tors Challenge, The Rona Sailing Project, Military Families, Combined Cadet Force and British Exploring
If you are considering training or volunteering to work with youngsters in the outdoors, please may we take this opportunity to recommend it. We’ve been doing it for 96 years you know, and none of us want to stop yet!
