Power To Be
Power To Be is one of those rare nonprofit organizations that recognizes the benefits of our physical connection to nature and the wild as a means to healing the wounds to both the body and the spirit. If you have can scale a rock-face, kayak, or surf the waves off Tofino, then other challenges, be they physical and/or mental disabilities or high-risk behavioral problems associated with teenagers, may seem less daunting by comparison. Power To Be offers the gift of empowerment and self-esteem to its clients.
Power To Be offers specialized outdoor recreation trips to everyone from those with serious illness to teenagers engaged in high-risk behavior. Their two main programs include an Adaptive Recreation Program that offers outdoor activities such as rope-climbing and kayaking for persons with mental and physical disabilities and a Wilderness School Program for at-risk youth.
The Victoria Foundation grants go toward funding bursaries; these bursuries will help cover the costs of a four-year, one weekend per month Wilderness School Program for twenty at-risk youth (ten boys and ten girls). The goal is to have an intake of twenty participants per year, meaning that Power To Be will have eighty kids in their wilderness school program at the end of the first four-year program. At $5,000 per year per student, that’s a lot of fundraising for Power To Be.
The core curriculum of the Wilderness School revolves around personal development and well being, interpersonal and group awareness, outdoor environment education, and community learning. The skills acquired in the program are not limited to wilderness and outdoor adventure activities; they offer self-empowering life skills that divert students to more constructive paths and pursuits.
The activities enhance self-esteem and foster social cohesion – important tools necessary for kids who may find themselves involved with drugs, crime and other high-risk behaviors. The program is pre-emptive in its objective to foster traits that will lead to a positive and productive adulthood. There is a high degree of emphasis on peer mentorship and utilizing vocational opportunities as part of the Wilderness School Program.
“We can run a program,” states Carley Julien, the Power To Be Wilderness School Intake Coordinator. “Because of the Victoria Foundation bursaries, we’re able to have a four-year program and not a one year program.”
The program has received a significant amount of positive feedback from the community. While the results are not measurable in a bottom line format, a parent writing a letter about how the program has turned her daughter away from high-risk behavior speaks volumes of the its worth to the community.
“Tim Cormode, our Executive Director, has been working very hard to keep the funding coming in,” says Lindsay Silverson, Power To Be’s Office Manager. “The key to the program is consistency and repeat funding and that is what the Victoria Foundation offers.”
