2023/24 Youth Ranger Scheme Comes to an End
Date Added: 20/02/2024
What is the Youth Ranger Scheme?
The Youth Ranger Scheme is an initiative to offer young people the opportunity to volunteer in conservation, whilst developing confidence and self-esteem through hands-on experiences. Supported by The Greensand Trust staff, young people will be able to develop new skills, gain work experience, have fun, and achieve a John Muir Award in recognition of their work.
What does it involve?
The Youth Ranger scheme differs from other volunteering and work experience programmes in that it offers a long-term involvement with the participants. The scheme will last for approximately 6 months, and comprise a mixture of evening sessions and activity days at weekends. Sessions will be held in all weather.
Approximately half of the sessions will involve practical conservation activities, which could range from planting trees to constructing a bird hide. The remainder of the sessions will involve opportunities for team work, personal development, and learning new skills, such as leadership, first aid or identifying wildlife.
The scheme will end with an event, planned and organised by the participants, to showcase their achievements. The participants will also be involved in promoting and publicising their work, and in assisting with planning and managing the projects.
The 2023/24 Cohort
The 2023/24 Youth Ranger Scheme for young people aged 13-18 has come to an end. This year, the young people were based at the Working Woodlands Centre in Maulden Wood and worked on several sites in the east of Greensand Country.
This fabulous group of young people didn’t know one another beforehand but through working hard together they built a real team and are now a valuable part of The Greensand Trust joining the growing list of Youth Ranger graduates. They learnt new skills, grew in confidence, carried out practical conservation tasks such as mammal surveying and coppicing and gave over 260 hours of their time volunteering over the past six months.
If you're interested in the next Greensand Trust Youth Ranger scheme starting in September 2024 please contact The Greensand Trust via: [email protected]