Founded nearly 85 years ago by the educationalist Kurt Hahn, Outward Bound was built on a simple, unfashionable belief: character matters as much as academic achievement. Kurt noticed that when people were placed in challenging outdoor situations – cold, tired, and occasionally lost in nature – they grew. Confidence increased. Friendships formed. Self-expectations were exceeded.
Outward Bound programmes continue to embrace this philosophy. Students hike through mountainous terrain, scramble through gorges, climb rock faces, jump off cliffs, paddle rivers, and cook and sleep outdoors. Phones and social media are left behind. It is not designed to be easy, and that is point.
“For teenagers in an Outward Bound programme, being outdoors accelerates self-discovery by removing familiar comforts and forcing real responses to challenge,” says Debbie Gorski, General Secretary of Outward Bound Monaco.
“This is a life-changing personal development experience, with both mental and physical challenges, that enhances team working and leadership skills and confidence building. For these students, facing uncertainty and shared hardship reveals resilience and fears more honestly than a classroom can.”
Each year, Outward Bound Monaco students, aged 10 to 17, are escorted from Nice airport to centres in the Lake District, West Wales and Scotland. They return happily tired, muddier, and changed – with a supply of stories to tell instead of stories to show.
“The skills they have learned – perseverance, confidence, teamwork, and adaptability – carry directly into school, work, and home life, where challenges rarely come with clear paths or easy solutions,” says Debbie, who also does marketing, communications and PR for the Monaco chapter. “They realise that effort, resilience and calmness under pressure matter more than comfort.”
Courses run one, two or three weeks with prices ranging from €1,499 to €3,099. “At the moment, we are offering an Early Bird discount for anyone who books before January 31. And, more importantly we believe that any young person who wants to go on an Outward Bound programme should be able to do so. If you need financial assistance to pay for a course, please ask us.”
Outward Bound Monaco is a registered association in the Principality since 2004. “We are extremely honoured to have HSH Prince Albert as our Patron. He is incredibly supportive to us and always seems to enjoy meeting our triumphant excited students.”
Debbie adds, “Without phones or status symbols, our Monaco Outward Bound students learn more about who they are under pressure, how they rely on others, and that confidence often grows not from ease and luxury, but from enduring difficulty and succeeding anyway.”
For more information or to book a place, visit the website or send enquiries by email.
Article first published January 29, 2026.Photos Outward Bound Monaco Facebook.
A few months back, at the beginning of summer, I ran into psychotherapist Gavin Sharpe in Port Hercules. He had just finished the Wellbeing Window, his 60-minute talk show on Riviera Radio the first Wednesday of every month.
For Gavin, who sums up his focus in two words – love and leadership – this was right up his alley: “Transformational leadership in 2023 is not exclusively about maximising shareholder value.” He sees first hand how the future “no longer rests in the hands of a few heroic leaders but with larger groups and teams. This is potentially a once in a lifetime shift and it’s fuelling my bedroom and boardroom work.”
“I want those attending to leave with a sense of how modern-day leadership has changed and understand the skills needed to meet those changes,” explains the founder of Riviera Wellbeing.
Initially a qualified lawyer in the UK, Gavin co-founded a global recruitment business specialising in legal employment in the City of London. Some 15 years later, he switched careers and became a therapist and business coach. “I help people show up,” he says.
He explains this means helping others become the best version of themselves, personally and professionally. “Imagine looking through a camera lens which is misty. What happens when you wipe it with a cloth? We see better. That’s what therapy and coaching do. It removes the blind spots and roadblocks we self-impose and which hinder our growth.”
Gavin believes there is a huge shift taking place which is changing what we want, need and expect from home and work. “At work, we are living through a massive experiment since Covid. None of us know what the workplace will look like a few years from now. When you think about the fact that we now have four different generations in the workplace from baby-boomers to generation Z, it is little wonder that companies are struggling with cultural cohesion.”
The Monaco resident adds, “I don’t think there is an MBA programme on this planet that has equipped today’s leaders for our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous workplace. That’s where I come in. I help leaders develop the resources to meet these changes.”
And at home? “In our personal lives, we are more stressed, we are more anxious and we are more medicated than at any other time in history. The impact on humanity is huge. Now add a changing workplace, global problems, such as climate change, an ageing population, political uncertainty and the list could go on, and we can see how the problems we face are interrelated. So yes, bedroom and boardroom. Love and leadership.”
Once upon it time, there was a belief that coaching and therapy were separate and never the twain shall meet. But these days, Gavin says he’s worked with racing drivers and billionaire businessmen. “I coach the person, not the problem. Likewise, therapists have a coaching toolkit which they dip into. So the separation can be important but it’s situation specific.”
For someone who has spent half his career in the corporate world and the rest working relationally, Gavin’s focus on love and leadership seems well-orchestrated. “If only I had planned it! At the start of my career, I just followed the money. That worked until it didn’t and I got bored. The more I follow my passion, the more it seems to lead me in the right direction and yes, I have had coaching and therapy along the way to get me here.”
Speaking openly about his lack of confidence growing up, he admits to not liking the Monaco cocktail party circuits – specifically the question of what he does for a living. “I think I am a bit insecure about whether I fit here. I still have no idea how to describe my work. I imagine people want a one-word answer. Banker. Lawyer. Private Equity. ‘Love and leadership’ sounds a bit too Californian but it’s growing on me. Like everyone else, I am a work in progress.”
However you describe his work, the success of the Wellbeing Window, which started back in 2021 as part of The Full English Breakfast with presenter Sarah Lycett, is indisputable. The show is inundated with email questions to the point that Gavin sometimes leaves the studio concerned he didn’t do justice to what are very serious topics.
On Wednesday, October 4th, he will be talking about The Workplace and Leadership. “When I am on air, it feels as if I’m having a fireside chat with a small group of locals. I think that sense of community is desperately missing from many of our lives and that is partly why we are seeking something additional from the workplace and why we need more emotionally attuned leaders.
“We are looking to replace some of our existential loneliness and we’re no longer prepared to go to work just for money. We want meaning.”
Tune in to the Wellbeing Window on Riviera Radio at 9 am on Wednesday, September 20th (Vulnerability) and Wednesday, October 4th (The Workplace and Leadership).
I have come to the conclusion that Planetary Health is like the unpredictable relative no one wants to invite to a family gathering. You know what I’m talking about, that family member whose presence makes others feel uncomfortable because inevitably there will be drama. Instead, everyone pretends everything is normal, hoping the problem will magically go away. But it only gets worse. Year after year.
And I get it. Planetary Health is a monumentally complex and distressing topic and, on top of that, we are in a race against time. The reality is that the planet is facing a double environmental crisis – the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. We are on track to reach 1.5°C global warming as early as 2034. In parallel, we have seen a 69% decline in the world’s wildlife populations in the past 40 years.
Beyond the headlines, it is not all doom and gloom. There is hope to ensure a sustainable future for people and nature, but it will require a rapid and transformative shift across sectors to drastically reduce emissions and fundamentally change the way we produce, the way we consume, and the way we finance.
This is where Re.Generation comes in (See Videos Below). This latest initiative from the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s (PA2F) brought together six brilliant women and four outstanding men from around the world for its first Re.Generation Future Leadership Program, which rounded off two weeks of training on July 13.
Not to be confused with youth leadership for entry level skills, this group of Millennials is recognised already in helping to fight climate change and biodiversity loss in four areas – Startsups and Business, Storytelling, Communities and Finance. They are representatives of a generation who are convinced that another way of using Earth’s resources is possible, convinced that we must protect and regenerate nature.
These Re.Generation cohorts are carrying the weight of your future on their shoulders. They are not afraid to look Planetary Health in the eyes or call out others who fail to do so, offering solutions with a powerful sense of urgency. I know because I had the good fortune of spending the last two weeks watching them in action and listening to their concerns.
I encourage you to watch the videos below to put a face to their names and stories. These individuals are a reflection of how the Prince Albert Foundation is stepping up its drive to accelerate change by engaging Millennials and creatives in innovative ways to help spread the message. And I assure you, this Re.Generation group may have arrived in Monaco as leaders. But they leave as experts.
Startups(WATCH VIDEO) The world has set very ambitious targets for 2030 to protect 30% of land and sea, and to restore what has been degraded. But 2030 is tomorrow, some 78 months away. What is the role of startups and the business sector in this vision?
Anne-Sophie Roux is a French ocean entrepreneur whose startup Tenaka is focusing on reversing marine degradation by restoring marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves, and, importantly, doing this at scale.
Colombian Federico Perez is the Founder and CEO of Selvitas, a company focusing on nature-based solutions and social equity in Latin America, particularly to tackle deforestation.
Sabrine Chennaoui is the co-founder and CEO of the Tunisian green start up, MONSAPO, which looks to revolutionise chemical products we use every day, and she is an advocate for empowerment of women in the workplace.
Finance(WATCH VIDEO) The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation launched this year its Re:Ocean Fund, a private equity fund dedicated to SDG 14 that will support startups focusing on marine pollution, blue food, ecosystem protection and restoration, and equipping ocean stakeholders with robust and transparent data. What role can these kinds of funds play to help scale up innovative solutions?
Ghassan Atallah is Lebanese with a background in mechanical engineering, who moved into the finance and investing space and is doing his MBA at Harvard Business School.
Storytellers(WATCH VIDEO) How to get the message out, both to policy makers and to the general public, to help instigate the transformative sectoral and societal change that we need to tackle the environmental crisis we are living?
Valy Phommachak is the founder of Econox Laos, a social enterprise for environmental protection strongly involving local communities. She also founded Econews Laos, the first and only environmental news platform in the country, and is an advocate for youth empowerment.
Imogen Napper – aka the “Plastics Detective” – is a British marine scientist and National Geographic Explorer who is researching plastic pollution and its sources. Her work influences policy change and was used as a basis for new legislation banning certain products.
Communities(WATCH VIDEO) To put solutions into place, transparency, inclusivity, and co-construction are crucial, making sure that no one is left behind. Local communities and indigenous peoples are often at the forefront of impacts of climate change and nature degradation.
Victoria Herrmann is a storyteller and geographer from the US works very close with communities on adaptation pathways to climate change, ensuring the empowerment of local communities in safeguarding their cultural heritage.
Jahawi Bertolli is an award-winning Kenyan filmmaker, TV presenter and National Geographic Explorer who focuses on underwater and involves local communities in Africa to delivering the storytelling message.
A 2021 Pew Research Center report showed that 69% of American adults surveyed say large businesses and corporations are “doing too little to address climate change” while two-thirds say “ordinary Americans are doing too little to help reduce the effects of climate change.”
The research also stated that 71% of Millennials (born 1981–1996) believed that climate should be top priority to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations compared to 67% for Gen Z (1997–2012), 63% for Gen X (1965–1980) and 57% for Baby Boomers (1946–1964).
Article first published July 16, 2023. Feature image: Re.Generation Program/Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.
