Project Trust, based on the Scottish Inner Hebridean Isle of Coll, is an international volunteering charity for young people. [1] [2] [3]
Established as an education charity since 1967, [1] Project Trust offers young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe [4] international volunteering experiences of 8 or 12 months duration. The aim of the volunteering experiences is to empower young people to develop their confidence, resilience, awareness, and leadership skills.
Until 2019, the charity's overseas placements to Africa, Asia and Latin America [5] were solely aimed at school-leavers aged 17–19, with volunteer recruitment achieved through School Talks and an active Project Trust Community of Alumni. In January 2020 a programme opened to 20-25 [6] year olds, yet to be formally launched, to assess the impact of offering an overseas placement to any young person aged 17–25 who meets the minimum criteria. [7]
Volunteers work in a range of local communities overseas through teaching, [8] [9] [10] community and care work, [11] and outdoor education projects. [12] Often based in remote and rural locations, volunteers have first hand experience of cultural exchange and the challenges of global issues and human rights.
Volunteers' selection and training begin many months before going overseas, with a trip to the Isle of Coll followed by several months of fund-raising prior to travelling overseas. [13] [14] [15] [16] This, combined with training on and off the Isle of Coll, a skills framework developed and evolved over many years, and a challenging but exciting overseas placement, offers volunteers opportunity to develop and enhance their resilience, confidence, and other key attributes that are hard to achieve in formal education and qualifications alone.
When volunteers return, a two-day course on the Isle of Coll allows volunteers to reflect on their experiences overseas and celebrate their achievements individually and as a country group. Returning volunteers are actively encouraged to draw upon their unique experiences and enhanced knowledge and understanding of the world to continue to equip others to become positive forces within it. [17] This can be as Project Trust Ambassadors or as part of the wider Project Trust Community of 'Returned Volunteers and Alumni'. [18]
Up to 250 young people travel overseas to around 23 countries each year, with the charity having spent 1.9 million pounds on its activities in 2018. [1]
The organisation was founded by Nicholas Maclean-Bristol OBE [19] while on secondment from the army, where he held the rank of Major. Mclean-Bristol met the grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia while serving with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the first project was to send three volunteers to Ethiopia in 1967. [20] As of 2020, over 8,000 young people have volunteered with Project Trust in 60 different countries. [21]
The charity's headquarters is on the Isle of Coll in Scotland, and has been since 1974; first at Breacachadh Castle, Maclean-Bristol's ancestral home, [20] [19] then moving to Bousd in the east of Coll. [21] It is currently based at the Hebridean Centre at Ballyhaugh [1] which opened in 1988, with some staff working from the UK mainland and beyond, either permanently in their Glasgow office, temporarily when attending events, supporting the PT Community, meetings, or delivering School Talks for example, or further afield.
Project Trust, which in 2016 featured in a BBC Scotland documentary How Scotland Works [22] about the Isle of Coll, is the main employer on the island — which, with its population of approximately 150 permanent residents, lies next to and northeast of the Isle of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides, about 40 miles (65 kilometres) west of Oban through the Sound of Mull.
Notable alumni of Project Trust include journalist, author and broadcaster Gary Younge, actress Tilda Swinton [23] and sustainability specialist Ed Gillespie.
The Isle of Mull or simply Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
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Coll is an island located west of the Isle of Mull and northeast of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Coll is known for its sandy beaches, which rise to form large sand dunes, for its corncrakes, and for Breacachadh Castle. It is in the council area of Argyll and Bute. Arinagour is the main settlement on Coll. There is a ferry terminal on the island which connects it with the mainland of Scotland. Coll also has a small airport. The island is rural in nature and has been awarded Dark Sky status.
Tiree is the most westerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The low-lying island, southwest of Coll, has an area of 7,834 hectares and a population of around 650.
The Treshnish Isles are an archipelago of small islands and skerries, lying west of the Isle of Mull, in Scotland. They are part of the Inner Hebrides. Trips to the Treshnish Isles operate from Ulva Ferry, Tobermory, Ardnamurchan and Tiree.
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Breachacha Castle is either of two structures on the shore of Loch Breachacha, on the Inner Hebridean island of Coll, Scotland. The earlier is a 15th-century tower house that was a stronghold of the Macleans of Coll, the island having been granted to John Maclean in 1431. This castle was superseded by a new dwelling in 1750 but continued to be occupied for a time. It fell into a ruinous state only in the mid-19th century.
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The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust is a marine conservation charity in the Hebrides, Scotland that is dedicated to research and education of whales, dolphins, and porpoises (Cetaceans) in Hebridean waters. It is based in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull although it works across the whole of the West Coast of Scotland.