Youth step outside their comfort zone
By Lu Feiran |
July 27, 2013, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
NATHAN Roberts from the United Kingdom has been with Raleigh for more than a decade and he has found a new life with the organization.
After participating several foreign expeditions, 38-year-old Roberts is Raleigh International's freelance training consultant.
Before joining Raleigh when he was 26 years old, Roberts worked in the corporate sector.
"I wanted to do something different, something more in tune with my personal values," he said. "I saw the opportunity to go as a volunteer staff member and applied."
In his first expedition in 2001, Roberts was a project manager in a wildlife protection program in a national park in Ghana, West Africa. The team had no technology except a basic radio to communicate with the Raleigh field base. They connected with the natural world, local people and each other.
"It was an amazingly fulfilling experience which made me want to do more with the organization," he said. "I saw elephants on a daily basis, and the experience of being with a group of young people, completely cut off from all that we knew was also amazing."
Roberts remembers bathing in a river in Mole National Park, Ghana, and seeing a black rhino in Namibia. On another expedition he climbed 1,400-meter Mount Kinabalu in Borneo.
Now Roberts is in South China's Guizhou Province on Raleigh China's summer expedition. He has visited a festival and was treated as a VIP in a local welcome ceremony.
"The genuine welcome and hospitality will stay with me forever," he said.
Roberts said Chinese young people participating in the expedition generally have a very strong work ethic. They are committed to Raleigh and their studies, and work very hard to succeed.
"Some feel enormous pressure to be 'successful,' however, many I spoke to did not really know what that would look like," he said.
Roberts cited the example of a young girl who found that Raleigh's team building games had greatly helped her feel more confident and trust others. She told him she used to have problems trusting people, which caused difficulties in life and made it hard to form the friendships that she wanted.
During the game, she had to trust her teammates and discovered that she could trust others.
The great value of Raleigh experiences is challenging people to leave their comfort zones and discover more about who they truly are and what they are capable of being, Roberts said.
"For some, leaving their comfort may occur the moment they surrender their mobile phone for four weeks! For others it may be completing the trekking or abseil. For some others, it might be expressing their emotions or running a sports day for the children in a village where we are working."
When people achieve things they had not thought possible, it creates a spark of possibility that maybe their dreams, either for themselves or wider society, might be possible after all, he said. Young people also learn leadership and teamwork skills that serve them in whatever life path they choose.
After participating several foreign expeditions, 38-year-old Roberts is Raleigh International's freelance training consultant.
Before joining Raleigh when he was 26 years old, Roberts worked in the corporate sector.
"I wanted to do something different, something more in tune with my personal values," he said. "I saw the opportunity to go as a volunteer staff member and applied."
In his first expedition in 2001, Roberts was a project manager in a wildlife protection program in a national park in Ghana, West Africa. The team had no technology except a basic radio to communicate with the Raleigh field base. They connected with the natural world, local people and each other.
"It was an amazingly fulfilling experience which made me want to do more with the organization," he said. "I saw elephants on a daily basis, and the experience of being with a group of young people, completely cut off from all that we knew was also amazing."
Roberts remembers bathing in a river in Mole National Park, Ghana, and seeing a black rhino in Namibia. On another expedition he climbed 1,400-meter Mount Kinabalu in Borneo.
Now Roberts is in South China's Guizhou Province on Raleigh China's summer expedition. He has visited a festival and was treated as a VIP in a local welcome ceremony.
"The genuine welcome and hospitality will stay with me forever," he said.
Roberts said Chinese young people participating in the expedition generally have a very strong work ethic. They are committed to Raleigh and their studies, and work very hard to succeed.
"Some feel enormous pressure to be 'successful,' however, many I spoke to did not really know what that would look like," he said.
Roberts cited the example of a young girl who found that Raleigh's team building games had greatly helped her feel more confident and trust others. She told him she used to have problems trusting people, which caused difficulties in life and made it hard to form the friendships that she wanted.
During the game, she had to trust her teammates and discovered that she could trust others.
The great value of Raleigh experiences is challenging people to leave their comfort zones and discover more about who they truly are and what they are capable of being, Roberts said.
"For some, leaving their comfort may occur the moment they surrender their mobile phone for four weeks! For others it may be completing the trekking or abseil. For some others, it might be expressing their emotions or running a sports day for the children in a village where we are working."
When people achieve things they had not thought possible, it creates a spark of possibility that maybe their dreams, either for themselves or wider society, might be possible after all, he said. Young people also learn leadership and teamwork skills that serve them in whatever life path they choose.
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