Rotary Club of Oswestry Sponsors Derwen College Duke of EdinburghSilver Award Students

In April and May this year, 11 students from the Derwen College, Gobowen's renowned residential further education college for students with learning difficulties and disabilities, successfully completed their Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award.

During the training, practice and assessed expedition the students had to deal with every weather condition imaginable.  Whilst training in Llangollen they had rain, hail and even snow.  The 3 day practice expedition on the River Wye brought beautiful sunshine and the assessed expedition on the River Severn brought 3 days of rain.  Nevertheless all 11 students successfully completed the challenge and have returned to College full of amazing memories and confidence. 

"Canoeing and camping in these conditions whilst living independently under canvas for three days has certainly made the achievement even greater." said Steve Evans, Sports Coordinator and Duke of Edinburgh Award organiser at The Derwen College. "The students have all learnt new skills, grown in confidence, developed both individually and as a team and had the thrills of taking part in activities not experienced before." he concluded.

Oswestry Rotary Club President Mike Griffiths said "We were pleased to be able to support the Derwen College students on their Silver award this year. This was an amazing couple of weeks  for the students which proved to be challenging but incredibly rewarding. We hope that they will be able to come into one of our meetings shortly and give the Club a presentation about the whole adventure!"