welcome

Raleigh is 25 years old this year. If you count Operation Drake it's even older. I believe it's time to take stock and to start to evaluate our impact on the people we have taken on expedition and on the countries where we have worked.

Last year I commissioned an independent research institute ippr to find and research the impact of the Raleigh expedition on the young people we have taken on Raleigh who had come from the poorest backgrounds. The research has just been published. They interviewed over 100 people who had been out between five and 20 years ago. The transformational effect of the experience was marked with 94% saying they had more confidence, 89% said it increased their leadership skills, 83% their career aspirations. 73% said they had done more volunteering as a result of Raleigh. You can read about the findings on the website under evaluating our work.

While Raleigh has always helped young people to develop their leadership skills, we are now working with younger people from 15 or 16 years through schools on the newly created Global Citizenship and Leadership Programme. Let us know if you have contacts at a school where you think we should be working with their students.

For our 25^th anniversary launch event at the House of Lords in London, our most famous alumnus Prince William has sent us a very warm tribute to his experience on expedition in Chile in 2000. Read his tribute here. Raleigh is an important part of the life of any young person who spends time with us, facing challenges, working in remote communities, building understanding and the ability to work together regardless of background or nationality.

Our Raleigh societies and support groups have been growing, recruiting more young people and devising great ways to work together to carry out good community projects. In November I attended the fourth Raleigh Asia conference with representation from a number of Asian alumni groups. The enthusiasm and excitement among the young members was truly inspirational and the potential of these societies to really make a difference is very exciting. This year Raleigh Singapore is recruiting 100 young people to carry out a project in India to build a health centre for a rural indigenous tribe. Raleigh Hong Kong which is also 25 this year, was started by alumni from the first expeditions in 1984 has an amazing series of events such as the Mountain Marathon and Wilson Challenge which any alumni can take part it but is also planning a project in mainland China.

While having evidence that we truly make a difference on the lives of young people is very important we also want to start to capture the impact we have had on communities and the environment. Our partnership with Google Earth will help us build the global map of all the projects we have ever done and we will need alumni to help us find and update information about projects from countries where we no longer have a presence.

Our final challenge will be to start to capture the impact of the good work that Raleigh alumni have done after they have returned - the impact of the fourth challenge. During the course of 2009 we will be identifying ways in which we can do that and will inform you through the website or via the alumni newsletter.

Please take a moment to support us by completing our alumni form and forwarding the link to your Raleigh friends www.raleighinternational.org/raleigh-alumni

Let us know if you would like to get involved in Raleigh's 25^th anniversary year or if you would like to share your news with the global Raleigh community. You can contact Debra Hay, our Alumni Manger on +44 (0) 20 7183 1280 or debra.hay@raleigh.org.uk for further details.