The Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award is for young people between 14 and 24 years old who want to challenge themselves, build invaluable skills and, most of all, have fun. Plus, you get to travel and hike in places you’ve never been before, and these could even be in a different country.
I have done all three levels of the DofE and I now volunteer as a Leader at my old group, so I think you can tell how much I enjoyed the experience!
David has done his Bronze, and has done all of his silver except upload it onto the system (I will keep getting on at him to do that until he does, it is such a great achievement to say you’ve done). So, we have quite a lot of DofE knowledge between us which we’d like to impart. We’ll be doing a few blog posts over the next week or so that will give information about different aspects of the DofE, so keep an eye out!
Firstly, we thought that telling people a bit more about the programme would be a good place to start. Basically, there are four sections (excluding Gold, but we’ll get into that) physical, skill, volunteering and the expedition. You have to do an hour of each of these sections a week for a set period of time in order to obtain the award. This is in more detail below:
The list of what you could do for each section is pretty much endless – as long as you can show you do something linked to one for the sections for an hour a week and you get better at the end of it, it will most probably count. There is a huge list on the DofE website for inspiration.
As said earlier, there is an extra little bit you have to do for your Gold Award, and this is a Residential. You have to be away from home for 4 nights volunteering or doing a coordinated activity as part of a team. I will share what I did on my residential on a further post.
The cost of doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award can be a barrier for some people I do understand that, however I do believe there are ways of centres being able to subsidise costs where needed, so the best thing to do would be to enquire and see what they can offer you. But honestly, doing my DofE has made me so much more appreciative of the outdoors and has inspired me to pursue new activities and pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I definitely feel I’ve become a better person from it.
If any of you lovely lot have done your DofE we’d love to know what you did, where you went and any tips you want to share.
Happy travelling!
Zoe and David x
Written by Zoe
Not-So-Trendy Travellers 