Take the Challenge

Raleigh International is a UK-based youth and sustainable development charity that aims to help people of all backgrounds and nationalities to discover their full potential through their work to improve communities and protect the environment.
This is primarily done through 5-10 week challenging expeditions to Borneo Malaysia, Costa Rica & Nicaragua and India. Past destinations have included 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.
Projects are planned with local partners allowing participants to work alongside local people in rural communities and habitats to improve the local living conditions and reduce the impact of poverty. Most work involves using low cost sustainable technologies such as biogas ovens, rain water harvesting, gravity feed water systems as well as building schools and community centres which the community needs. Work in partnership with governments and national parks over many years has supported their conservation efforts by improving the infrastructure of national parks or reducing human-animal conflict.
People can apply from around the world either as venturers (17-24 year olds) or as volunteer managers (25-75 years) who undertake a variety of roles including project manager, expedition photographer, medic, communication officer and logistics manager. Raleigh is a member of The National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS), Bond (for international development) and Civicus.
Raleigh also works with companies such as Green & Black's, supporting their efforts to develop sustainable Fairtrade cocoa communities, and the Airbus Corporate Foundation, taking their staff into India to build biogas plants for tribal families in order to reduce their need to take wood from the forests for cooking fuel.
  
History
Based on Operation Drake, Operation Raleigh (1984-1991) included volunteers and staff from around the world on community, environmental and adventure based expeditions in Africa, the Americas and the Far East.
In 1992, following the increased number of international volunteers, the venture "commercialised" and became "Raleigh International" with a continued organizational focus on youth & sustainable development.
In 2009 a 32 year old volunteer died on one of their expeditions in Namibia. A court heard that a South African instructor had failed to follow guidelines of the South African Adventure Recreation Association – which granted him his qualification – about the type of safety equipment used on the day.

Alumni

Notable celebrities that have been on Raleigh expeditions include Prince William who spent 10 weeks in Chile in 2000, his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Marina Ogilvy, daughter of Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, BBC journalist Kate Silverton, Ray Mears and Mark O'Shea who participated in three Raleigh expeditions from 1985-1989.
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 realized 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 traveling ('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.'

External links

• Raleigh International: www.raleighinternational.org