Pathways to Outdoor Activities

Organisation: Aban Outdoor Ltd.

This organisation was successful!

Summary of proposal

We already run our local Aban Mountaineering Club & Bike Club. We aim these at teenage (S1 upwards) but want to create a stronger pathway for younger children in P7 to start with us. Our Trustee Nichola Creighton (Administrator at Merkinch Primary School) has identified a gap that the P7s go to Outward Bound Loch Eil every March, and come back really psyched for more outdoor activities - only to find there is no local pathway into it. We can directly address by offering activities straight afterwards - e.g MTB or hillwalk sessions picking up straight from school. Crucially these will not be one-off standalone things, but will lead straight into our established clubs which operate year round at just £1/session.

This will offer more activities & things to do as identified through the work done by Youth Highland. There is so much outdoor activity on offer across the Highlands but very little of it directly in Merkinch. Re youth-led, the starting point would be those P7 multi-activity experiences at Outward Bound - so it's asking the pupils what did they enjoy the most and what would they like to do more of now they're back home. That way we can link the pupils who keenest on e.g climbing with our Mountaineering Club, MTB with our Bike Club, and so on.

Amount requested: £3,000

All the benefits of regular outdoor activity! Everyone knows how good this is as antidote to the problems facing children in Merkinch today. We spell this out in our recently published Impact Report - https://aban.scot/images/Impact-Report.pdf 

Our whole way of working has young people at the centre - we don't just say that, our activities are genuinely child-led as this is the Adventurous Learning philosophy we were founded on: https://aban.scot/about/%C3%A0bans-ten-principles

Link to priorities identified for the local area by children and young people: 

• Create safe spaces, more things to do and more choices
• Youth-led projects, youth empowerment and more trust in young people.

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