The Mark Evison Foundation (MEF) was established to celebrate the life of Lieutenant Mark Evison, who was tragically killed whilst serving in Afghanistan in 2009. He was a notably adventurous young man, and the Foundation exists to encourage a similar sense of adventure in young people in London schools, by enabling them to undertake challenging projects of their own devising. They now work with Year 12 students in about 70 schools, and are seeking to increase this number during the 2018/19 school year.

When a school contacts MEF, they will arrange to come in for an initial Year 12 assembly and then a number of follow-up sessions. Students who show an interest after the assembly will be introduced to the application process in the first session, and then helped to produce their plans in the subsequent meetings. At the final judging session, students have to present their projects for approval. Students are hoping to complete the whole process during the course of one term so as not to lose momentum. The students choose, plan and carry out their projects themselves, without adult supervision or help. The projects can be physical, creative or technical in nature – all that is insisted on is that they are genuinely challenging and also practical and safe. To gain an award (of up to £500), students have to produce effective plans, detailed budgets and sensible risk-assessments. This is a challenge in itself, but ensures that the projects themselves are likely to be viable.

MEF are very much aware of the time pressure affecting busy teachers. They try to minimise the demands we make on them by communicating with the students direct and running all the sessions ourselves.

Feed-back from students who have carried out projects and their teachers is overwhelmingly positive, with many saying that they have had a life-changing experience. The qualities required, grit, resilience, team-work, leadership, perseverance, are much heralded currently, but not always encouraged by the risk-averse environment in which we live.

Please take a few minutes to visit the web-site (www.markevisonfoundation.org). Click on the pictures on the front page, and you can read the students’ accounts of their adventures.