A journey with the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award

The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award programmme is an internationally recognized programme that creates opportunities for us to learn and experience new things and take part in activities that we would not normally do. We create goals to achieve them and we linked them with the United Nation’s SDGs (Sustainable Developmental Goals). These tasks help us with life skills.

For the Skills Section, have learnt a range of new skills and in the end, we have a broader scope of capabilities. For physical recreation we are kept fit and healthy and we learn more about the sport we take part in. Service allows us a chance to give back to the community by means of doing charity. These skills teach us responsibility, team building skills, confidence, how to engage in society all while having fun and it has a positive impact as it helps us students to have a broad range of ideas.

The fourth component of the programme is the Adventurous Journey – I think this is the most exciting part! In this section, I have learnt completely new skills and I have had the most amount of fun. Our journey was as expedition. The Qualifying Journey is to Neluwa, Sinharaja and before going on this expedition, there is a lot of preparation. First, we went though In-House training. In this session we learnt about map reading, navigation, what to do in a dangerous situation, how to take a bearing etc. Next, we went through First Aid Training - one of the most important and amazing achievements! Then we went to Hanwella, to test out our new skills. We leant further how to cook when in the outdoors, how to put up a tent as well as how to respect our environment. Continuing from that, we went on our Practice Journey to get an idea of how to put all these newly learnt skills into play. We worked in a team and learnt the importance of teamwork and communication. Coming up is our Qualifying Journey – the final expedition we will take for the Bronze Award. Here we will be assessed on how much we have leant and progressed.  

The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award is a truly fascinating experience. I am in the process of completing my first level – the Bronze Level Award and I have been having a lot of fun. I have learnt a variety of things and my confidence has been built through it. It has also helped me to understand the environment better and how to care for it properly. I can very easily say that this has been one of the best choices I have made and I have taken so much out of it already!

Shae Gajabahu

Year 10A