Adventure trips focused on UN Sustainable Development Goals
School trips offer incredible learning opportunities that can bring out the best in students. For those fortunate to take part in one, they often create some of the most lasting memories of their time in school and opportunities for significant personal growth. Such trips play a key role in nurturing well rounded, socially responsible individuals by cultivating key skills and attributes such as empathy, leadership and teamwork. We are also increasingly aware of the powerful impact education outside the classroom has on the mental health of students, especially when the trips include opportunities to engage in meaningful service work.
Carpathian Mountains Romania-Copyright-The Carpathian Foundation
After a 28-year career in teaching, I decided to follow my passion in this field and established Red Kite Adventures Ltd. We specialise in trips for schools and students that are focused on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They are designed with key learning objectives around issues of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our adventures include biodiversity conservation in Iceland, projects to improve the livelihood of minority ethnic groups in rural Thailand and a trip to Stockholm to study the Scandinavian approach to economic development.
Romania-Copyright-The Carpathian Foundation
Our latest destination to Romania can give you an insight into what Red Kite Adventures are all about. Life on Land (SDG 15) is the key focus of this trip. Students work with Foundation Conservation Carpathia on their wilderness reserve project, restoring biodiversity hotspots and helping endangered animals such as wolves and bison to thrive. The trip also includes a focus on Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11) as students get to experience an authentic, traditional way of life in rural Romania where protecting their natural heritage demonstrates how people can live within the means of what our planet provides. Students stay in eco lodges, wilderness camps and homestays on this adventure and there is time to throw in a few tourist activities such as a trip to Dracula’s castle and a tour of Bucharest along the way.
Student surveys Romania-Copyright-The Carpathian Foundation
Service plays a key role in all of our adventures. Students get the chance to engage with projects directly dealing with sustainability issues. Where possible these involve hands-on experiential learning opportunities. The service projects enable students to spend quality time with a local community building deeper connections than a traditional touring adventure.
The inspiration behind this venture came from my own experiences in education and leading trips. I have witnessed at first hand the positive impact that school trips can have on the students and their schools. With service and sustainability focused trips, that positive impact is also possible for the projects and the local communities where the students travel.
We have to recognise that all travel does come with a carbon footprint so we work with schools to look at how students can take action to offset that impact. We encourage students to build connections with linked projects closer to home. For example, the Devon Wildlife Trust’s mission is similar to that of the Carpathian Foundation in Romania. They too aim to restore the degraded natural environment, recreating wildlife habitat and reintroducing lost species. What better way to offset the footprint of a trip than volunteering to support the work of such a locally based cause? Our hope is that the trips inspire a change in the attitudes and behaviours of the participants to care more for our planet and that they realise they can take responsibility for their own actions to make a difference.
So, if you or your school are interested in adventures that include projects such as whale conservation in Iceland, pathways out of poverty in a South African township or rainforest regeneration in Indonesia, please do give us a call. Do also keep an eye out for new adventures that will be based closer to the home and even within the UK itself.
Further information about Red Kite Adventures and its aims can be found on their website. https://www.redkiteadventures.com/
All images supplied by Red Kite Adventures.
Iceland Copyright Arctic Adventures
Romania, Copyright The Carpathian Foundation.