The Challenge Network

The Challenge Network is a small charity aiming to inspire and enable young people from diverse backgrounds to come together and lead social change and build stronger communities. We achieve our aims through The Challenge programme for year 11 students. It is heavily subsidised by our generous donors so as to enable anyone to take part (our current fee for youth participants is as low as £25 for early applicants).

The Challenge is made up of three sequential challenges:

• Week 1 - The Personal Challenge: Participants take on a series of outdoor adventure activities at a residential activity centre to bond them together, build courage and personal responsibility.
• Week 2 - The Team Challenge: Participants learn to work with a series of community groups using skills they are passionate about (including performance, media, sport, enterprise and design & technology).
• Week 3 - The Real Challenge: Participants explore challenges facing local communities and design a project that will strengthen the local community. They are then challenged to deliver these projects over the next 4/6 weekends.

The first two challenges provide young people with an incredible experience, enable them to have fun, meet people from different social backgrounds as well as developing their leadership, teamwork and communication skills. In the Real Challenge they get to use the skills they've learned to design and deliver a project of their own.

Note: applicants must be 18 or older.