The Outdoor Partnership work to support people of Wales and across the rest of the UK to take up outdoor activities as a life-long pursuit. Their vision is: “Enhancing people’s lives through outdoor activity.” This means enhancing people’s physical and mental health, and wellbeing while improving the economic return and the social value of outdoor activity such as walking, cycling and adventure sports.
What are the main aims of The Outdoor Partnership?
Within their vision, the partnership’s main aims are to:
- Seek to deliver generational change to encourage lifelong participation in outdoor activity and support the recovery from the Covid pandemic;
- Build capacity to support local participation, performance, skills development (first time experiences – through to long term sustainability and repeat activities) and employment of all ages;
- Enhancing the partner delivery model to develop the current framework across the rest of Wales; development of quality products to provide enjoyable outdoor experiences.
How does The Outdoor Partnership’s work help Sport Wales to achieve an Active Nation?
Encouraging people to be active in the outdoors is at the heart of The Outdoor Partnership. And they have now expanded their reach from North Wales, to include the whole country.
Disadvantaged and underrepresented groups are targeted using outdoor activity, with a focus on grassroots participation and young people. Both mental and physical health, and wellbeing are priorities – especially in supporting Covid recovery.
Raising awareness of opportunities, including apprenticeships, and providing training and education can help to improve employability in the sector. Unemployed people can progress to further learning and sustained employment through these opportunities. As well as providing teachers and parents with qualifications, the development of community outdoor clubs and members can lead to more volunteers with nationally recognised qualifications working locally.
How can The Outdoor Partnership support the wider network of partners in our united Vision for Sport?
Development of new partnerships and shared learning has been key to the expansion of The Outdoor Partnership in Wales. Shared learning is ensured by promoting advocacy and engagement with stakeholders. They work with their key partners and stakeholders to deliver and promote social prescribing with access to the outdoors as a primary focus.
The current model will be continuously developed by identifying potential new partnerships and developing support packages to enable new areas to promote the ethos and values of The Outdoor Partnership.
