Journey-based outdoor programmes that take young people out of their comfort zones and show them they are capable of far more than they knew. Every course is shaped around the outcome you are working towards, and quoted per programme.
Participants arrive on base, meet their instructor and their group, and are issued their gear and food. Their first task is choosing what to eat for the whole journey – the first lesson in budgeting and planning. From there the group hikes out, making camp somewhere new each day.
Along the way come the challenges: rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing, navigation, group problem-solving. Every challenge is followed by a debrief where the group works through what happened, what they learned, and how it applies back home. Nobody is forced to attempt anything they are not comfortable with.
The point is never the cliff or the river. The point is the discovery that they are capable of far more than they believed.
Tell me, and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand.
Every course we run is shaped around what a school, funder or partner is trying to achieve. These are the three themes most requested by our corporate and social investment partners.
For young people who are ready to lead but have never been given the room to practise. Participants take turns leading the group through real decisions with real consequences, mentored rather than directed, with every decision turned into a lesson they can name and repeat.
Built for young people facing the pressures of poverty, unemployment and limited opportunity. Hard but achievable challenges let participants gather evidence of their own capability – proof that a disadvantaged past does not have to mean a disadvantaged future.
Days spent living lightly in mountain, river and coastal environments, with the practical skills that go with it. Participants come to understand the environment as something they belong to and are responsible for, not scenery they pass through.
For young people who are capable of leading but have never been handed real responsibility. Each participant takes a turn as leader of the day, making decisions the group then has to live with – which route to take, how to ration the food, how to get a tired team over the last climb before dark.
Instructors step back and mentor rather than direct, so the lessons are earned rather than delivered. The debrief is where it lands: the group tells the leader what worked, what did not, and why. Most participants lead badly on their first turn and noticeably better on their second.
Built for young people carrying the weight of poverty, unemployment and narrow opportunity. The course sets challenges that are genuinely hard but reachable, so that by the last day each participant holds evidence they cannot argue away: they carried the pack, they made the climb, they did not quit when it would have been easier to.
Outward Bound was founded on the premise that a disadvantaged past does not have to mean a disadvantaged future. This is the course where that idea is put to work, and the reference point it creates is what participants draw on long after they have gone home.
Days spent moving through mountain, river and coastal country, carrying everything the group needs and leaving nothing behind. Participants learn to navigate, to camp without damaging the ground they sleep on, to ration water, and to read weather and terrain well enough to make safe calls.
Living in a place rather than visiting it changes how young people talk about the environment afterwards. It stops being scenery and becomes something they have a stake in – which is exactly the shift host communities and conservation partners are looking for.
Whatever the theme or the length, the shape of an Outward Bound course stays the same. This is what a school, funder or partner can expect from the day the group arrives to the report that lands afterwards.
Every theme above runs in any of these formats. Length, group size and content are set with you, and we are mobile – we can run programmes close to the communities you want to reach.
Course content, length and group size are set with you, and costs are quoted per programme rather than off a price list. Tell us who you are working with, roughly how many of them, and what you want them to walk away with – we will come back with a proposal built around that.
We are a registered non-profit with Section 18A status, so corporate and CSI partners receive the documentation their reporting requires.
