Discovering, Exploring, Conserving and Sharing – John Muir Awards Success Celebrated

Eleven young people have been congratulated for their success in the John Muir Awards scheme, following a four day environmental course, facilitated by Dover District Council and Skill Horizons.

The Discovery Awards were presented to the young people with their families at a special presentation at Dover District Council by the Chairman of Dover District Council, Cllr Sue Chandler, with DDC’s Community Services team.

The award encourages people from all backgrounds to discover, explore, conserve and share wild places.  It helps young people to connect with nature and learn to enjoy and care for wild places.

The summer programme ran for a week in August in St Margaret’s. The young people took part in a range of outdoor activities including rock pooling, den and fire building, making hammocks, and outdoor adventure team work activities. The programme was funded by the Dover District Community Safety Partnership.

The week was run by Skill Horizons, who run the Forestry School for DDC’s Inspire initiative, and most of the young people who took part in these latest awards have now come on to the Inspire programme to join the Forestry School. Inspire helps young people to create new friendships, introduce them to healthy lifestyles through sport, and open new doors into work with opportunities to learn new skills.

Comments from some of the young people presented with their Discovery Awards included:

• Aaron, aged 14, said: “The week was full of really fun stuff, exploring and adventuring in lots of mud.”
• Gracie, aged 9, said: “Really fun, learnt how to light fires and keep safe outside.  Before I didn’t like doing things on my own, but now I do.”

Cllr Sue Chandler, Chairman of Dover District Council said: “It was a real delight to congratulate these inspiring young people on completing this challenging course and achieving their John Muir Awards.”

For more information on the John Muir Awards, please see the John Muir Trust website.