Scots charity chosen as experts for £3m project

A Scottish charity specialising in providing outdoor activities for disadvantaged youths has been selected as the expert partner for a £3 million European consortium that aims to help 1,000 young people.

Venture Trust’s expertise in delivering a community and wilderness-based model of social development has attracted the attention of rhe “From Outdoors to Labour Market” Project (FOLM) which is being led by the Centre for Innovative Education and includes partners from Poland, Spain, Ireland and Scotland.

The project is funded from a £3,028,775 grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and the Norwegian Grants Fund for Youth Employment. The multinational project will aim to give nearly 1,000 young people not in education, employment or training – frompoland,spainandireland – the skills and opportunities through outdoor learning to develop life and professional skills to find and sustain employment.

Venture Trust’s head of operations, Mike Strang said: “Venture Trust has now been working in the outdoors with vulnerable groups for more than 20 years. We will work with the University of Edinburgh to produce a theoretical model based on our programmes, and provide training for the project’s partners in Spain, Ireland and Poland.”