DD Charity Update - March 2023

It's the month of March and Spring has officially sprung!

This month we have been working with UK non profit CIC the Leg Up Project - an organisation founded by Royal Marines and led by veterans. The Leg Up Project works to provide various programmes (such as nature and adventure therapy, outdoors activities such as wild swimming/walking/sailing, mental health first aid and other goal oriented workshops) primarily to aid in the support of male mental health, however they aim to provide assistance to all those that need it, particularly as they expand.

Read on below to read (and watch!) how the Leg Up Project works to develiver essential assistance to those in need with the help of the great outdoors!

Based in North West Leicestershire, The Leg Up Project is a social hub with the sole purpose of raising the holistic wellbeing and encouraging mental and spiritual growth of everyone involved; "At the heart of poor mental health lays a need for love & belonging, we maintain our community spirit through our ethos and understand that a healthy community heals."

We catch up with Tom, Project Development Lead for The Leg Up Project, who explains more about the goals of the LUP and services they provide:

"The LUP is a not for profit, community interest company (CIC) situated in NW Leicestershire that delivers, adventure therapy, and educational courses to promote an increase in wellbeing and healthy living. The organisation is veteran led and founded by former Royal Marine Commandos. We work with individuals of all ages from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those with addictions, mental health difficulties, homelessness, PTSD and more. We teach resourcefulness and outdoor skills combined with wellbeing coaching (counselling skills) and are the only people combining these two subject matters with amazing results thus far. We have affected over 1000 people from all walks of life with our unique combined adventure therapy. The organisation is currently led purely through volunteers’ time and does not turn over a project with the little cash raised going back into the project. We are currently seeking options of how we can continue the amazing work that we know we are doing.

We are expanding the project to work with and teach wider groups of young people outdoor education, navigation, bushcraft and more, entwined with our wellbeing and resilience education. This will give 8–18-year-olds a chance to access hands-on learning, content and fun that will help them develop physical skills together with their mindset whilst enjoying the outdoors and what it has to offer. We help develop people’s mental health by both a combinative and preventative approach, serving to help alleviate and prevent mental distress whilst building resilience in both mindset and survival skillset.

As mentioned, a number of those that utilise our project are impacted by a range of difficulties such as (but not limited to); mental health problems (commonly primary conditions such as anxiety and depression), relationship difficulties (breakdowns and breakups), emotional difficulties (containing, expressing, sharing, and understanding emotions), interpersonal issues (crossing boundaries, understanding the needs of others, loneliness) and general poor health (physical health). We help individuals by helping them understand themselves. We use a range of techniques and alternative methods to shape their interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, physical health, overall subjective well being, and emotional regulation. This is done alongside outdoor education and adventure which helps people understand, reflect and learn things quicker and better than in a fully traditional classroom environment."

Using their new DD Charity edition Hammocks and Tarps, The Leg Up Project make quick work of getting folks out into nature!