Rooted

Her eyes are wide with excitement as she stares back into the vial of river water. She just learned about all the tiny little creatures that call the water home and she saw them for herself through the microscope. While she will be more conscious about her water intake the next time she jumps into the river, determination for the protection of the wetlands and its tiniest residents is about to be her next obsession. 

The Rooted, Youth Ecology Program is about the relationship between organisms and their environment and how youth can play a role is supporting these connections. Our program centers around building youth’s connection to the land through outdoor educational experiences and seeing their potential roles in the outdoor ecology process.  We are working with youth from marginalized communities to help diversify the outdoor landscape. Their sense of discovery now will be future leaders in outdoor conservation.

This program is all about that eyes-wide-excitement. We believe that sense of place in outdoor spaces are the foundation for stewardship. More than “brown bodies working white land”-- we want to inspire youth, promote wonder, and create a sense of place in these wild  spaces. 

We are in the works of planning our 2020 partnership to be a one month immersion program centered around the Columbia Slough. More details to come. 

Our adventure leaders support the majority of Wild Diversity's programing. They lead single day and multi day adventures on land and on water. Our Leadership Development Program focuses on developing outdoorists and community members into outdoor leaders, regardless of the level of previous leadership or outdoor experience, through a combination of workshops, field training, feedback and growth. Our Leadership Development Training program is for People of Color and/or people in the LGBTQ community. Their passion is what determines the adventures they lead.
Our leaders completing Wild Diversity’s Leadership Development Training will demonstrate the ability to:

• Assess and manage the risks involved in leading others in a backcountry setting such as backpacking, canoeing and kayaking.
• Provide experiential education to support participants’ proficiency in a variety of outdoor skills.
• Design and implement an outdoor adventures that allows other participants to develop a sense of discovery.
• Understand the connection between our community’s sense of place, health and accessibility to outdoor spaces. 

Risk Management for the Future will be a two-part community led and attended workshop to explore risk and safety in the outdoors.  It is the recognition of the unique risks we face as populations who endure prejudice from people who want to harm us.

BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people are increasingly present and visible in organized outdoor trips and events, and will be the future of the outdoor industry. At this time, our specific risks in the outdoors are overlooked in most risk management outlines. It is imperative that we move this conversation out of the boardroom, and put it under the care of a grassroots movement. We want to be able to mitigate risks that are directed towards us because of racism or queer & trans hatred. We want to create a plan of action to lean on in volatile situation when we are miles away from safety, allies, or support systems. And we want to recognize the tremendous amount of emotional risk that it takes for many in our community to enjoy the outdoors.

At the end of this workshop we hope to have 1) a risk management plan that is unique to our population; 2)  to have an outline for deescalation; and 3) be able to supplement emergency protocols as response to an incident.

We have just wrapped up our workshops and survey responses this fall. We are putting together all the info we received from our community at large. We will announce next steps as soon as we have them. Stay connected for more announcements. 

Resilience Outdoor Conference is about decolonizing outdoor education for People of Color & the LGBTQ communities. We strive to provide support that is centered around our community and fosters a meaningful foundation for diversity.  It is an investment in community knowledge expansion in outdoor education that supports growth today and tomorrow.

What is Resilience?

Resilience Outdoor Conference is a reimagining of what an outdoor conference could look like and a unique way it could serve the community. It is hands-on, in the wild and lead by community leaders in the outdoor industry.  Resilience is a two part conference.

1- Wilderness First Aid - Wednesday to half-day on Friday. This certificate program is great for those who want to have an extra layer of knowledge when they go in the backcountry with friends or while leading a group. It is a great foundation to build wilderness medical knowledge. We want to provide a safe space for our community to be seen and to learn. We hope to further diversity in the outdoors by supporting leaders who are a representation of our community. You'll learn the Patient Assessment System, how to provide effective first aid treatments for injuries and illnesses common in the outdoors, how to manage environmental emergencies, and how to make appropriate evacuation decisions. You will spend half your time practicing skills and participating in realistic scenarios.

2- Skillshare - Friday to Sunday. This is the main part of Resilience, learning and growing your outdoor competency with community. It will be a weekend full of community lead workshops where you will pick up relevant skills and knowledge to increase your outdoor preparedness and resilience.  You will learn the basics and advanced skills. You will leave with a wide variety of information to support your growth in the outdoors.

Both parts of the conference are lead by BIPOC & LGBTQ for BIPOC & LGBTQ.

Through our community and sponsor support our Gear Library helps eliminate barriers for our community to access the outdoors.

We are expanding the welcoming community in the outdoors while decreasing barriers to outdoor adventures. We are fully supporting our community and outfitting our participants and community partners to get outdoors in the ways you'll enjoy most. The Gear Library provides gear for camping, backpacking, canoeing, kayaking and more. Our library allows the opportunity for our community to experience an adventure to see how much they’ll love it before acquiring gear.

The Gear Library helps support participants of all Wild Diversity trips. One can join any of our trips knowing that if they can’t spend thousands of dollars on equipment and gear it is still possible to participate.

We love to work with our community partners. Our library supports youth organizations who primarily work with youth of color, queer & trans youth or low income youth. We lead adventures for our youth partners or lone gear. 

Preparing you for present, the apocalypse and beyond. This year Wild Diversity will have a series of I Thrive workshops and events to support you to survive and thrive. With each skill-set you master you’ll receive a badge. You can take them to your next zombie apocalypse team interview. Through these workshops we want to help our community build skills to support their outdoor competence and confidence. Learn how to navigate, read maps, make fires, identify birds, make a life saving knot, identify medicinal and edible plants, build shelters, navigate waterways and more. 

Stay connected to be updated on our first I Thrive events this winter. 

Day Adventures - Click Here for more info on upcoming day adventures.

More info coming soon!