Youth Travel Bursary Winners
Here are selection of our winners over the years. We hope they give you inspiration.
2011 – Lucy Pickering and Imogen Butler
Singer and musician Lucy Pickering, currently at Durham University, joined King Edward VI Camp Hill sixth form pupil Imogen Butler as winners this year. Both former pupils of Arden started their travels in August.
Lucy taught at one or more schools in the Kathmandu area and took part in a community project there, e.g. helping street children, supporting victims of domestic violence or contributing to a construction project.
Imogen was seeking to discover the effects of the demolition of the Kowloon Walled City squatter settlement in Hong Kong on the lives of the former residents. Having already carried out desk research including interviews with two ex Governors she travelled to Hong Kong to interview the Kau Fong Association and other eminent ex residents. Her findings will provide others with detailed information about the effects of the demolition of the Kowloon Walled City, which could potentially be applied when considering urban slum demolition elsewhere.
2010 – Julia Shelley, Olivia James, Thomas Jewell
Three Knowle students travelled to Edinburgh, Borneo & Nepal 
this year
Julia Shelley joined a musical comedy group of Cambridge undergraduates and performed in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe throughout the Summer. Durham University student Olivia James spent 2 months in Nepal developing a greater awareness of the music culture of diverse ethnic groups. Thomas Jewell headed off for a year in Borneo as a volunteer at an outward bound school in Sabah, Borneo with the Project Trust educational charity
2009 – Mollie Routledge, Jenny Hawkin, George Walker
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2008 – Roisin Mendonca & Alison Walker
Knowle residents Roisin and Alison met up at Arden School where they were both formerly pupils. Roisin, on the left, returned after a six week Summer assignment in Zambia where she worked at a centre for homeless children in the capital, Lusaka. ‘I had a wonderful summer in spite of the challenges,’ said Roisin. ‘The money from Lions enabled me to do more than I would ever have imagined – as well as feeding, clothing and teaching children, we were able to plant vegetables and crops for them to harvest later and we provided materials to help the building of a new classroom.’
On the right Alison went to Malaysia for three months and assisted in community projects in Sabah, North Borneo, to provide facilities such as infant schools, meeting halls, libraries, and clean water systems. Alison is hoping to put her experience to good use when she plans to become a social worker.
2007 – Amy McGuiness & Andrew Decker
Amy McGuinness, who lives in Dorridge, and Andrew Dekker of Knowle are both former pupils of Arden School.
Andrew is a medical student at Nottingham University and plans to spend eight weeks early in 2008 at the Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town is regarded as one of the most violent cities in the world and their trauma unit is one of the world’s busiest, treating 15,000 patients annually.
Amy McGuinness completed her Physiotherapy degree at the University of Birmingham and before taking up a permanent appointment, she spent a period of time as a volunteer at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Her attachment there was under a charity funded scheme which links that hospital with the Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
2006 – Gillian Dolphin & Jenna Ward
Jenna, medical student at Leeds University at the time, spent 6 weeks at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi where she was a volunteer worker in the Obstetrics Department. “Working at the hospital has been really challenging but I had a great experience there” she said.
Gillian was studying Nursing at Coventry University before spending part of the next summer at a school in Darjeeling in India.
Earlier in the day Jenna had spoken to many of the older pupils still studying at the School and encouraged them to consider planning an adventure of their own.
2005 – Jenny Sheen & Katie Smith
Katie Smith travelled to Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean on a month long Young Explorers Expedition, and post-graduate Jenny Sheen from Knowle set off to Sri Lanka to undertake a 2-month journalism placement in Colombo.
‘I read about the Bursary in the local newspaper and felt that my proposed trip to the arctic wilderness to explore and study the vegetation distribution in the different habitats might qualify for a share of the money,’ said Katie from Dorridge, who celebrated her 18th birthday whilst away.
Jenny, whose ambition was to become a features journalist on a national paper, had already graduated at Bristol and gained work experience on a teenage girls’ magazine in Scotland and later at the Solihull Times. She funded the balance of the costs herself, working this Summer teaching English as a second language in Edinburgh. ‘I discovered the project online and became passionate about the opportunity to broaden my journalism experience working for an English language national daily newspaper based in Colombo,’ she said.
2004 – Paul Taylor
Before applying Paul had previously funded his own trip and spent three months working unpaid in an orphanage in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa where the children were either Aids infected or had lost parents as a result of Aids.
The next year Paul decided to return to South Africa for another 3 months as part of a team to make a film and DVD of the children in the orphanage in order to help raise funds towards a re-building programme for the orphanage. In addition, the project helped raise the awareness of the effect of Aids both in South Africa and the U.K. His bursary assisted Paul with his travelling, accommodation and film and DVD production costs of over £6,000.
Paul’s film ‘We Are Together’ featuring the children of the Agape orphanage in South Africa enjoyed great acclaim being shown on Channel 4 TV and in a number of nationwide art cinemas in 2008 , can be seen on http://wearetogether.org/
