The Princes Trust - YMCA Scotland / Adventure Sports Project

This exchange involved an Irish group from Dublin, and a UK group from West Lothian in Scotland. The main themes were adventure sports and cultural exploration. This was one of the exchanges that involved two groups from distinctly different backgrounds: the Irish were from a deprived community, much used to drugs, dealers and serious theft. Their Scottish counterparts in contrast were from quite a secluded region in Scotland, where life is relatively comfortable.

As a result, the Scots found that their expectations were challenged and evident from their write-ups, they appear to have dispelled some of the myths that had originally been associated with the Irish group. Ideas that young people from a deprived area would naturally behave in an antagonistic fashion were quickly allayed. In fact, both groups were surprised at the level of compatibility that existed between them. Both the Scottish and the Irish were exceptionally warm and friendly to each other and the creative evaluation presentations highlighted, in the main, the personal and social rewards that both teams had gained from the week that they had spent together.

The exchanged allowed participants to come together and take ownership of the project. Not only did they learn something different, but they learnt about preconceptions and why making them is wrong. Different people from different places may have different ways but that is not a barrier for communication, rather it makes for a very interesting starting point.

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