At UK Youth, our vision is to ensure that “all young people are equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives”.

With our 2025 strategy, we have committed to “unlock the power of Youth Work” by:

-Working through networks of youth organisations and supporters to build a nationwide, cross-sector movement ensuring that the youth sector is strengthened.

-Delivering innovative and high-quality youth services ensuring that provision is youth-led and evidence-informed.

-Campaigning and advocating for young people to increase support for youth work and to ensure that we create a society that understands, champions and values youth work for all.

As part of our commitment to young people for over 75 years UK Youth has also operated our Outdoor Centre at Avon Tyrrell.  Pre COVID we annually supported 39,000 visitors, of which 25,000 were young people, including individuals from deprived backgrounds or with a disability. 

By providing inclusive outdoor learning, Avon Tyrrell uses its stimulating locality within the New Forest National Park to allow young people to ‘Experience, Learn and Develop’, supporting them to learn the skills and competencies they need for life and giving them the best opportunities to reach their full potential.

With 110 beds in our Grade I listed Manor House and 70 beds across nine small forest lodges, we have a good selection of options to cater for our visitors, but the site lacks sufficient indoor learning space and our Manor House accommodation requires vital modernisation, energy efficiency and heritage restoration to ensure its continued use by young people.

For these reasons, we are aiming at raising £5m over 2 years with two clear purposes:

• build a new Learning Centre with outdoor learning and conference facilities and
• undertake essential repairs to the Avon Tyrrell Manor House to allow full utilisation of all its accommodation, incorporating environmental technologies that will improve the quality of comfort and services and improve the efficient management of the Manor House.

Outdoor Learning is anchored into our 2025 Strategy and one of our goals is to expand our outdoor learning footprint and raise awareness of how outdoor learning and youth work are intrinsically connected.

We truly believe that outdoor learning is an aspect of youth work that can have long lasting outcomes improving young people’s social skills and wellbeing, having a positive social impact, and enriching their lives.

If you would like to know more about the UK Youth Movement, click here!

If you would like to know more about our plans for our Outdoor Centre at Avon Tyrrell, please email us at [email protected] or contact us on 01425 672347.