By Written by: Taunya Murchison

This past March, 18-year-old Schurman Peters of Scotchfort was the latest recipient of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze Award. Founded by Prince Philip, the Award made its way to PEI in 1963 to encourage youth to be active, to participate in new activities and pursue current interests in four different areas: Community service, Skills, Physical Recreation and Adventerous Journey. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award programme has three levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold.
Schurman learned about the program through his local youth group, Mawit’a. One of his favourite memories from his journey throughout the first stage of the program was camping in Wellington where they were involved in a number of activities and the venue of the camp was an added bonus, he said.
The program wasn’t designed to be competitive but as a self-motivating tool and for Schurman he experienced the positives of the program first hand.
“One thing the program taught me was to be myself and stop acting like something I’m not. I would recommend other youth come try it out.”
Now Schurmans got his eye on the prize and is going to start putting in time and effort for the Silver stage of the Award programme.
“I don’t think there was a challenge for me to do anything for my Bronze but I think it’s going to be challenging for my Silver.”
For more information visit their website www.dukeofed.org.