DoE Awards furore

Earl of Wessex causes controversy

The Queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, has suggested the risk of death is part of the attraction of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme for young adults. The prince’s comments came during a trip to Australia after being asked about teenager David Iredale, who died bushwalking as part of the Duke of Edinburgh award.

Although he didn’t comment on the case, it was reported that the prince said the idea that “you could die doing this” added to its popularity.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a youth program which encourages young people to undertake a range of activities including trekking, rafting, horse riding and volunteer work. In 2008, 33,000 young Australians, aged between 14 and 25, participated in the award. The prince was asked a question by The Australian newspaper about the death of Ireland, who died in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, after he became lost, ran out of water and collapsed.

He said there was a surge in interest in the program's early years in Britain after the death of a boy.
“Suddenly the award, which was new...(its) reputation among people was, ‘Wow, this is serious. You could die doing this.’

“And the sense of adventure, the sense of excitement, that it gave you that sort of risk element- that’s going back many years- but young people are like that, still that sense of adventure, the sense that it (death) is possible.

“Obviously we don’t want that to happen. Certainly that’s not the intention: we give them skills to go out there and do it safely and constructively. It was just that psychology, about what makes young people tick.”

On analysis, it seems that Edward's comments are fairly straightforward - after all, every adventure brings its own risks. Taking into account the context of the Ireland case, perhaps the DoE Awards will do even better after all this publicity.