We started our partnership with Eden Rock in August 2018, our second ‘Uprising’ in Edinburgh. Together with Urban Uprising, they have taken six groups of young people through 8-10 week climbing courses, and a further two groups were in progress when the centre had to temporarily close due to the coronavirus pandemic. These are all young people who wouldn’t normally have the chance to take part in bouldering or climbing and the results can be profound. As Mrs Wilson puts it, teacher at Cuiken Primary School, “It is great to see the children’s confidence in themselves grow week by week. Phil was great in connecting with the kids and helped them work on their resilience."
Last February, Eden Rock enabled us to achieve a major milestone by helping us develop and successfully run our first self-delivered programme. Having a syllabus that is run solely by our volunteers is a big step towards rolling out Uprisings to new walls and cities, and Eden Rock worked with us to develop games and warm-up exercises, methods to coach groups with diverse needs, checklists and consolidated information for instructors, and debrief sessions. They also hosted a volunteer induction evening for new Urban Uprising volunteers, run by Urban Uprising’s Ben Campbell.
As well as being instrumental in session delivery, Eden Rock has also played a large role in fundraising hundreds of pounds for Urban Uprising, not to mention running sessions at cost for our participants. Activities included collection buckets, the 20-20 Bouldering Challenge, and a chunk of proceeds from their screening of Reel Rock 14.
Urban Uprising founder Stuart Green said, “We are incredibly grateful to Eden Rock and everyone who supported us, in particular Phil, Hal and Will (Eden Rock Climbing Instructors), Armelle Ramage (organiser of 20-20 Bouldering Challenge), staff who took place in Rough Runner 2019, and all the volunteers. The donations from Eden Rock will allow us to run even more projects and help make a huge difference to the young people involved.”
As with many of our partners, Eden Rock is having a really tough time, and we just wanted you to know what a massive support you have been to Urban Uprising. The Eden Rock team totally rocks!