In addition to our Board of Directors, the Foundation also operates a Youth Board which runs in parallel to the main board.   This core group of young people drawn from participants in our wilderness trails and social programmes help us to build and shape our programmes so that they best meet the needs of the benficiaries.

Periodically representatives of the Youth Board meet the Directors and feed back on the Foundation’s work from their perspective.  Annually we all come together to review the work of the Foundation as a whole and develop our plans for the next twelve months.

Our Youth Board currently comprises of the following members, all of whom give their time and energy on a voluntary basis:

• Richard Millar
• Ben Gernon
• Emma Ireland (Chair)
• Jennifer Honeyball (Secretary)
• Charlotte Downs
• Kate Vidal
• Mary Leese
• Mita Desai
• James Mummery
• Christopher Au
• Justin Murray
• Aidan Smith

Richard Millar

I travelled to South Africa with the Wilderness Foundation as part of a group on the Haberdashers Scholarship programme in the summer of 2008. We taught at the Umzi Wethu academy, and went out to spend a fantastic time sleeping out under the stars on a wilderness trail in the Umfolozi wilderness reserve. In this fast paced and ever more technologically advanced world that we live in, the value of wilderness in offering us a deep connection back to our natural, prehistoric routes becomes ever more important; hence I believe that preserving and maintaining the remaining areas of wilderness on this planet to be a hugely worthwhile cause.

James Mummery

I participated in a Sirius Alumni programme in the summer of 2009, canoeing and camping along Loch Sheil in North West Scotland. In-spite of the midges, I had an amazing trip picking up new skills and more importantly a new and deeper appreciation of natural habitats and what the term wild really means. Having lived in London my whole life, I was so surprised how differently I viewed it on my return from Scotland. My experiences with the Wilderness Foundation UK have permantley changed my interaction with the landscape around me be it urban or wild, and it is this opportunity that I hope to help the Foundation offer to many more young people to come.

Justin Murray

I went on one of the South Africa trails for two weeks and found the experience, without a trace of hyperbole, life-changing. I found the effect of coming into contact with the ‘wilderness’, whatever that may be, a very cerebral and spiritual one – the change to my state of mind was calming and refreshing – something I find consistently lacking in much of everyday Western life. I believe therefore that, for the benefit of humanity, such an effect should be bought to as large an audience as possible and wilderness areas should be preserved and protected for this purpose.