Western Isles Duke of Edinburgh’s Award - Volunteers Required

15 June 2023 at 16:39:14

The Western Isles Duke of Edinburgh's Award is looking for volunteers.

The DofE Award has been running for several years throughout the Western Isles.  Getting involved in helping young people to achieve the expedition section of their Duke of Edinburgh's Award can be a very rewarding experience as you can see them progress their skills, and develop as an individual too.  There are a number of groups that can be joined, dependent on the area you live in, or you could choose to run expeditions with a group of young people you are involved with already - a youth group, sports club or similar. 

Groups that are currently active with expeditions include: 

• Nicolson Institute (Stornoway)
• Sir E Scott Group (Harris)
• Sgoil Lionacleit (Uist)
• Castlebay School (Barra)

Not all expeditions are done on foot, although this tends to be logistically most simple so many are, but can also be by other forms of transport that don't have a motor.  Options include cycling, kayaking, sailing, horse-riding, coasteering, long boarding etc.  If you have experience in any of these activities (or others you can think of) then we would be very happy to hear from you! 

• Bronze expeditions are for 2 days and 1 night
• Silver are 3 days and 2 night
• and Gold are 4 days and 3 night. 

At Bronze, there is just 1 expedition to complete, but at Silver and Gold each group complete a 'practice' expedition at each level, and then if leaders are happy to go on to complete their 'qualifying' expedition, which is assessed.  If expeditions are not your thing, you can help out with the 'admin' side of things supporting the young people with their 'edofe', logging on and uploading their evidence and ensuring that their profile is up to date and assessor reports are in.

Training will be provided for any new volunteers.

Commitment would be various hours between April - September for Expeditions and the admin role would be ad-hoc all year round.

This year particularly we are really needing volunteers to help out with expeditions.

If you are interested and would like further information, please contact Alice Murray, DofE Operations Manager