The Wellspring

Applications are now open for the Wild Gift, a program that grants up to $15,000 to youth-led year-long projects that benefit people and nature.

The Wild Gift provides grants ranging from $10,000 to $15,000 to leaders who wish to embark on a self-designed year long project to protect nature or promote sustainability. The program is open to young leaders aged 21 to 30 worldwide and is provided at no cost to the recipient.

The Wild Gift program consists of four parts: mentoring to help refine leader-designed projects, a 20-day wilderness trek, a year’s support to ensure the project’s success, and a seven-day trek after one year to share project results and strategize for continued achievement.

Past leader-designed projects that the Wild Gift has supported include a documentary film on community farms, a nature writing program for urban youth in southern California, and the founding of a solar construction company that provides green technology to development projects in Ladakh, India.

For more information and to download an application form, visit http://www.wildgift.org/.

Applications close 1 April, 2007.