Raleigh International
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raleigh International is a UK-based youth development organisation that aims to help people of all backgrounds and nationalities to discover their full potential.
This is primarily done through a 3 month expedition to a foreign country, with past countries including Chile, Costa Rica & Nicaragua, Ghana, Namibia, Malaysia, Mongolia and Fiji.
The expeditions themselves generally comprise three parts (Adventure, Environment and Community), each lasting about three weeks, with the expedition as a whole lasting about three months.
[edit] History
Initially a four year project under the name of Operation Raleigh (1984-1989), it was a followup to the successful Operation Drake, and included 4,000 volunteers and 1,500+ plus staff using ship-based expeditions. As the intiative flourished, it was decided that it should become permanent, and the expeditions migrate to being land based.
In 1992, following the increased number of international volunteers the venture was renamed Raleigh International with a continued organisational focus on youth development.
[edit] Alumni
Notable celebrities that have been on Raleigh expeditions include Prince William who spent 10 weeks in Chile in 2000 and Ray Mears.
The following is taken from an interview with Ray Mears by Andrew Smith on Sunday February 17, 2002
'As an only child growing up in the southeast of England (Sussex, Kent, Surrey), he spent most of his free time alone in the woods ('In a way, I think I walked into the woods and nature saw me and said, "Walk this way." I think something similar happens to most of us in life. We don't choose our path, it chooses us'), but could see no way of applying what he learnt at school or university ('I think that was very sad, looking back on it: I didn't think I'd learnt anything, I was just doing what I enjoyed'). As a result, he left school in 1982 at the age of 18 and took a job in the City, where he had a terrible time.
'It was ghastly,' he laughs. 'That doesn't mean I think it's bad, I just hate that sort of life. For me to be there is not good for anybody, cos I'm unhappy and if I'm unhappy, I'm going to buck against that.'
The failure hurt, but faded when he landed a job on the Operation Raleigh project, where inner-city kids are brought together and whisked away on adventures. Here, he learnt to work in a team and realised that he had acquired something of value in the woods. Afterwards, he turned to setting up the survival-instruction business that he still runs with Rachel, his partner of 10 years, whom he met on one of his courses and whose nearly grown children he helped to raise when he wasn't travelling ('Rachel's older than me: I won't have children of my own,' he states with resigned finality). Then, in 1996, he was asked to co-present the travel programme Tracks . He's never looked back.
'After Operation Raleigh, it all becomes a blur, really. The years seem to go past like minutes and all of a sudden you start to feel a few aches in your bones and think, "Oh my God, I'm mortal!" I don't like it. I fight against it, I have to say.'
I can still hear him laughing as he disappears into the woods and his basha.'
