DofE is a development program for teenagers and young adults (14 – 24). In this program there are three progressive levels (bronze, silver, and gold). When you end one of them, you’ll get a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (for your progressive level). Achieving the Award isn’t a competition or about being first. It’s all about setting personal challenges and pushing personal boundaries.
At the bronze and silver levels, there are four sections to complete and at gold, there are five. They are skill development, sport, volunteering, and adventure expeditions and gold involves a residential project.
Skill development is about progressing on your talent or acquiring skills. Your talent can be anything. From playing musical instruments and studying languages to cooking or programming. There is only one rule – you are supposed to enjoy it.
Physical activity is about helping and improving your physical condition and performance. In this activity, you can do any sport you like. You can be in a team or do sport as an individual. The goal is to overcome yourself and achieve the planned goal in each activity.
Volunteering is about doing any activity, where you are a volunteer. You can help others in your community or improve the neighborhood or anything different. You can volunteer in any organization, or you can make your project. You can help your classmates. This category has a lot of options, and you are supposed to pick one.
An adventure expedition is an opportunity to step out of your comfort zone. You will go out into nature with a group of friends, who are doing DofE too. It is only for a few days. You can discover interesting places. The expedition always has a goal – for example, mapping forgotten places or collecting garbage around the given location.
The residential project is only for the gold level of the DofE. You will go to a place you don’t know, and you will do something interesting and meaningful. It can be a camp, educational stay, volunteer project, or Erasmus+ exchange.
You pick three activities (skill development, sport, volunteering). At the bronze level, you do activities for three months (13 hours) and you need to pick one of them and do it for three months longer. At the silver level, it is six months, and one has additional six months. At the gold level, it is 12 months, and one has an additional six months too.
The adventure expedition has also different times at different levels. At the bronze level, it is 2 days (1 night), at the silver level it is 3 days (2 nights), and at the gold level it is 4 days (3 nights). The expedition is divided into practice expedition and qualification expedition.
I have experience with the bronze level. For the skill development, I chose to write articles (blogs) in English, like this one. I have overall written seven articles, about different topics. For the physical activity, I chose CrossFit. If you want more info on this, you can read one of my older articles. For the volunteering, I chose to do a counselor in scouting. (Also, one of my older articles).
I recommend DofE to anyone, who wants to try something new. You can learn a lot of things and get better at your activities. I like that you have freedom in picking your activities. So, if you think about starting a DofE program, please try it. It gives you a lot.
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