This year marks a new record in the Duke of Edinburgh's International Award at VIS, while the first cohort of students who haven't attended the programme previously are about to reach the Gold level.The students are called "direct entrants" and showed real perseverance during the programme running for 12-18 months.
The DofE International Award is an internationally recognized, voluntary, non-competitive, and flexible programme of cultural, and adventurous activities for all young people aged between 14 and 25 years old. The programme strives to help the involved students to develop skills such as leadership, perseverance, teamwork, and communication. VIS was the first school in Austria to offer the Duke of Edinburgh's (DofE) Programme in 2014 with more than 100 students having been involved in the programme ever since.
To complete the Duke of Edinburgh’s programme, the students need to complete four main sections: Volunteering, such as helping people, the community or society, Physical, such as sports, Skills, learning a new ability and the Expedition, where the students need to plan, train and complete an unaccompanied, self-reliant expedition.
Although attending the Gold level seems like a great challenge, this didn't stop our students from embarking on a journey that would get them out of their comfort zone and throw them into a life changing experience, as they will go out into the wild for a total of eight days in which they will sleep in tents, cook their own food and find their own path with the help of their navigation skills, a map and a compass - plus the commitment and teamwork of the whole group.
In preparing for the final adventurous journeys to Wachau and Salzkammergut, the teams have already trained by traveling to Rax at the beginning of the year, following the footsteps of the great Victor Frankl and Sigmund Freud. Have a look at the amazing landscapes they found!