Deon Barrett: True North Project, Overcoming Adversity & Making Adventure Accessible in Schools

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From a turbulent childhood to nearly facing prison, Deon Barrett found purpose through outdoor adventure, the military, and the True North Project—his initiative to bring outdoor education into schools and make adventure accessible to all. In this episode, Dion shares his powerful journey, the impact of adventure on mental health, and his ambitious plans to summit Everest and ski solo across Antarctica.

We explore:
✔️ How adventure helped Deon overcome trauma and find purpose.
✔️ The True North Project and its mission to transform outdoor education.
✔️ Barriers preventing young people from accessing adventure.
✔️ The mental and physical challenges of preparing for Everest & Antarctica.
✔️ How outdoor learning builds resilience, confidence, and leadership.

Deon’s story is one of resilience, transformation, and paying it forward. If you're passionate about adventure, outdoor education, or personal growth, this episode is for you.

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Deon Barrett is the founder of the True North Project, an advocate for youth outdoor education, and an aspiring high-altitude mountaineer. His journey from a troubled youth to a champion for adventure education is as inspiring as it is impactful.

Follow Dion & The True North Project:
🌍 Website: TrueNorthProject.co.uk
📸 Instagram: @TrueNorthProject

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

🔹 True North Project – Outdoor education initiative
🔹 Everest & Antarctica Expeditions – Deon’s upcoming challenges
🔹 Youth Outdoor Education Reform – Advocating for adventure in schools
🔹 Black Girls Hike – Encouraging diversity in the outdoors
🔹 National Outdoor Expo – Where Dion and Chris first met

Chapters

• 0:00 A Troubled Beginning
• 0:40 Welcome to Adventure Diaries
• 1:01 Upcoming Expeditions and Training
• 1:03 Introducing Deon Barrett
• 3:06 Deon's Early Life and Struggles
• 5:36 The Impact of Bullying
• 18:12 Turning Point: Military Aspirations
• 21:10 Joining the Military
• 28:15 Skills and Lessons from the Army
• 33:39 The True North Project
• 33:52 Youth Expeditions and Future Goals
• 36:36 Changing the Education System
• 40:22 Inspiring the Next Generation
• 43:57 Challenges and Opportunities in Outdoor Education
• 48:30 Advocacy and Personal Adventures
• 56:40 Representation in the Adventure Community
• 1:02:11 Upcoming Expeditions and Training
• 1:09:31 Final Thoughts and Call to Adventure

Transcript

 The first memory of mental health and the trouble it brang was my mum stumbling into my room, well walking into my room and finding me with my school tie around my neck trying to hang myself and I think for someone of the age of maybe 11, 12 doing that, how do you actually, I didn't care for my well being even though deep down I didn't want to be this person I was becoming and And yeah, sooner or later it caught up with me and  A certain situation came about where I was stood in front of a judge, almost going to prison for about three years. 

Welcome to the Adventure Diaries podcast, where we share tales of adventure, connection and exploration. From the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers, we hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures. And now your host, Chris Watson.  

Welcome to another episode of the Adventure Diaries.

Adventure Diaries  Today, we're joined by Deon Barrett, the driving force behind the True North project, a mission to empower the next generation through outdoor adventure. Deon's journey is one of remarkable transformation from a very turbulent childhood and struggles with mental health through his time in the military to now becoming a champion for outdoor education and diversity and adventure. 

Deon's own ambitions to climb Everest and skiing solo across Antarctica aren't just about pushing his own limits. He's inspiring young people to discover their own true and through the True North project, he's working to bring that outdoor education into schools and make adventure accessible for all by showing how exposure to these wild places through exploration we can really shape who we become.

This is a fantastic story about resilience, about purpose, about diversity, and about struggles. And what I love most about this conversation with Deon is in his paying it forward, he's paying it forward for the next generation through the True North Project. And for anyone with younger families, this should really resonate with you. 

So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Deon Barrett. Deon Barrett, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? Thank you for having me, 

Chris. Yeah, I'm all good, man. Busy times, but I'm sure it's the same for you. So I appreciate you having me on. 

Yeah, buzzing for this. We first bumped into each other at the National Outdoor Expo and I've seen your top there.

I was with my little one as well and just love everything you're doing. So grateful to have you here today. And maybe it's a bit of a frame then actually on that. So the purpose or really the context that I want to get into today is everything that you're doing with the True North project, the youth initiative, owning the outdoors and all that fantastic stuff.

Advocacy work. And of course, your adventures will step into that as well as some of the stuff you've done in Nepal and your plans for Everest and such. But I'd like to kind of start off by framing a little bit about who is Deon Barrett. Let's get a bit of context. We'll talk through your early life, some of your formative experiences, you know, turbulent childhood and some of the battles and your journey into the outdoors before stepping into this fantastic True North project.

So what was it like then growing up Deon? What was your early life and formative experiences like? 

Yeah, first off, thank you for joining us at the NEC for the talk. It was appreciated. Yeah, where do I start? From the outside looking in, it was a very modest working class background and grew up in the southwest of London and around the Surrey borders and From, like I said, the outside looking in, it would probably seem quite a simple upbringing.

My mother done her best. So I was born in America and then my mum left my father and came back to the UK where she resided originally and I didn't know a lot around that time.  So, a lot of the questions were like these unanswered questions, which kind of threw a spanner in the works with my progression.

But yeah, things, I guess, up to the age of 10 years old, I was a very happy kid. I got to see my grandparents and they kind of really. instilled a lot of the adventure individual in me, I guess. Some of the stories I used to hear from my grandparents and likewise through my mum and seeing all these amazing paintings and pictures of their trips and travels.

That's where I was kind of fantasized with the idea of traveling, I guess, from an early age, looking back at it. And yeah, I think for me, after like maybe 10, 11, that's when you start asking these questions about who you want to become, who you are and this and the other. And I guess not knowing my dad.

created this spiral effect of unruliness mixed with just a search for self gratitude, I guess, and the answers that kind of get left to whoever your parent or guardian would be in a situation like that. For me, My role at the time before questions about my dad and everything, it felt like very much me and my mum taking on the world and I loved that to bits and we enjoyed each other's company.

There was great memories there. But then as soon as I kind of I've got to grasp that my dad wasn't around, why wasn't he around, and this, that, and the other. That's when I was going into school, not paying attention, because I was like, you know what, I don't know who I am. So I kind of felt like the black sheep in every situation.

I felt like I had something to prove because other people had. Both their parents and their families were a bit more functional and stuff like that. And it just created this kind of airy kind of person who I didn't want to be. But because these answers were left unanswered, it was just like, you know what?

Screw it. I'm just gonna be the worst person.  As mental as that sounds like it. Led me to believe that, okay, I've got to make myself this person. What everyone else seems to think is the cool kid and this and the other. So I guess, yeah, that's kind of where things started going wrong. And then when I started going into junior school, I think that's when I really tried to fit in the identity crisis of it all was who am I, what's my purpose here.

And there was always something in the back of my head. If you don't know where you've been, you don't know where you're going. And I felt like my parents had something to do with that. My mum, she's white British and my dad for what I knew was. It was black American slash Caribbean, and I didn't have any of that around me.

So it was because of experience, like strong racism as well at the time in school, the kids are pretty ruthless and that stemmed into the bullying, which then led on to me coming home, being upset, whatever uniform ruined and stuff like that.  And then going, well, mom, I need to know a little bit more about myself.

And she didn't feel comfortable enough to, at that time, to give me enough to use and have that inspiration from a farm figure. So the bullying aspect, coming home every day with another story to tell, either getting thrown in bins or getting beaten up or getting spat on,  was in theory. That's when mental health had a big part to play with my position on this earth.

And I think the first memory of mental health and the trouble it brang was my mum stumbling into my room. Well, walking into my room and finding me with my school tie around my neck, trying to hang myself.  I think for someone of the age of maybe 11, 12, doing that, how do you actually manage that from my side and also from a parental side?

It was quite hectic. And that kind of continued. There was no answers until my late thirties. So that was pretty much me and the journey I was going on in search of myself really. 

Yeah. To think of where you are now, mate, it's horrendous. The physical mental and the battles that you've gone through. I mean, young man full of hormones, you know.

Identity crisis. It must have been tough. And as a parent of someone, a little girl that's not far off that age, it really brings that to life. But it shows you there's hanging in there. There's a world of hope and adventure and everything else on the other side of that. So what part did your mum play in that?

Because I know your mum, she helped with your journey somewhat, didn't she? Through travel and stuff. Yeah, 

I think my mum and myself, we've had a quite strange relationship, obviously, due to just,  My path and her path really separating from the moment I went into school, but I think she, at the time it was, well, we've got no one to look after Deon, we're going to take him on all the holidays and stuff like that.

I even went on their honeymoon, my stepdad and her honeymoon.  I think at the time it was almost rubbed in my face like you stole our fun, that kind of thing, but it was only because I reciprocated in the same way I was at school. If you look at all the photos from all the trips and the places, as fantastic as they are looking back now, I was a moody, horrible kid.

I wasn't no one nice to be around, really, half the time. From my mum's perspective, she took me to the Canary Islands.  Cornwall, Turkey, Italy. To be fair, there's a funny story of how the realization of my adventurous nature came about and we went to Venice, probably.  At that age, maybe one of the most boring places to go just from a fun holiday perspective, right?

Anyway, I went along and I was a very, if I want it, I've got to have it kind of kid. I was very horrible looking back at it. And there was this one time. I wanted something in a shop window, and both parents said no, and I stormed off in the middle of, I forget where it is, but in the middle of Venice, one of the most busiest, tourist, atmospheric places you would go in that part of the world, and I just made my way back to the hotel, which was at least Three miles out as the crow flies, but to get back to the hotel, I'm not sure if you've been to Venice, but most of it is like, I've water transport and like boats as buses and this, that and the other, where obviously you need a fare.

I was fortunate at the time I was pretty short as well. So I kind of just rustled through the crowd and stuck my way through.  Anyway, my mom and dad, after calling the police and getting a search party, essentially, for me, they get back to the hotel room and they see me in a dressing gown, chilling, watching TV with a brew on, essentially.

And, um, them being surprised that I even made it back to the hotel was one thing, because everything looks the same there. So, I think that was where I realized. That I had a real good sense of direction for whatever, I don't know if it's somewhat of a photographic memory or whatever, but I have a good way of, if I've gone somewhere I can normally retrace my steps pretty well. 

So that was a good win in my mind as a kid, whenever I went out and when I was in my teens I was out for days on end and these little skills being what I would call a hood rat and just literally on the streets day in day out, those skills got utilized quite a lot like I would be finding myself from one end of London to Surrey all by foot and the rest of it and it was quite a  That's where I found the unknown journey being something I'm really attached to from a young age.

And this is just from a perspective looking back at things in hindsight. I didn't know it at the time, but these are skills that I would be taking on and utilizing throughout my life. adult life. So,  yeah, some things I'm grateful for experiencing regardless of how rough and tough it was. 

Yeah, a degree of escapism, but certainly skills.

I mean, I've been to Venice countless times and I know, I mean, San Marcos Square, probably you're talking Yeah.  Yeah. Christ. I mean, I've been there with my little girl actually, and I hate to say this, I'll probably get shot, but we had the little reins on her so she couldn't go. It was almost like walking a dog.

It was terrible because it was just so busy. So I can visualize you bounding through the streets and onto the water taxis and stuff. Yeah.  Did you do much of that? Obviously turbulent childhood, obviously, and then around London, did you get a chance to? do a bit of that escapism down there get out and when you were younger.

I think for me leaving the house and having the excuse to leave the house was my beginning to each kind of escapism, even if it was causing trouble and loitering on the streets or what have you.  I think every time I stepped out that door, it was, I knew the next day, this day I'm stepping out was just a new turn of events and it wasn't nothing short of adventurous by the slightest.

You didn't know what was going to happen with your group of friends or the days were just. In essence, ruthless to some degree, but at the same time, I kind of wanted that. I wanted that unknown experience of troublemaking mixed with, like, adrenaline junkie ish type stuff. Like, I would just cause trouble in the time of bored, and then when I got a little bit older, the adrenaline kind of went into, obviously, more organized crime as I got older, and  I think that was again in this because when you're in a city, I guess, and this is just from my perspective, but when you feel like you're caged and you can't get out of this system, you also find that not excuse, but you use that as the fuel of the fire and it's like, well, no one's here to help me.

No one's giving me a step. I'm going to make it on my own kind of thing. And, um, And how you do that is probably more on the side of the illegal kind of activities. And I was a very naive individual and most of it looking back at it was probably just fitting in and then tumbled into once I fit in, it's trying to get up to the higher tier of respect.

And I think because of. The direction of travel for these activities, shall I say, it is very unknown. You can get into a lot of trouble. You see a lot of things like there was a lot of incidents where I would have to have a word with myself and really go. Is this where I need to be right now? Or can I step away?

And I was very much if, if there was a bad idea, I would be the first to kind of go on and test that how bad it was.  That's where I started getting in trouble with the police and just spiraling down the path where I didn't care for my wellbeing, even though deep down I didn't want to be this person I was becoming.

And yeah, sooner or later it caught up with me and certain situation came about where I was stood in front of a judge, almost going to prison for about three years.  And. Fortunately for whatever, I think the guy just woke up on the right side of the bed to be fair, but fortunately he could see  from my demeanor, this wasn't me, and he gave me that second chance of, I guess, freedom and really the trouble it caused with my mum as well. 

Police go through the house and turn in every nook and cranny over was a rough experience. Like I never wanted to bring anything I've done to my doorstep. And I think that needed to happen in order for me to get out of that cycle, get out of that cycle. Also.  Kind of backtracking as well through these times as well as a late 18, 19, 20 year old finding a job and holding it down.

Like my personality, I hate being told what to do, especially if I feel like I can  do it better, which I think most people feel that way in some degree, but I just felt it quite a lot. Like you'd probably get someone who's pretty jumped up on their job and you put one foot wrong and I just hated the feeling of always stepping on that thin line.

And I couldn't really hold down a job for as long as I can remember. And  I think the adventure, I wanted to put my energy. Into myself, once that kind of prison sentence and thing was going around. That's when I had a real word with myself and said, look, I have some qualities. I don't have qualifications.

I don't have this or that. How do I manifest something for myself and put myself in a position where I can actually make my parents proud and become a better and understanding man of who I wanted to be, who I probably saw wrong. That kind of Lone Ranger kind of. of person who comes home from tour or something and saves the town almost, right?

The heroic kind of individual I would see on films was someone who I was like, I could kind of be that guy. I didn't feel like I had anyone anyway, as much as my parents done a lot. I did feel very segregated from my own family at this time. So that's when I decided that. Joining the military was going to be my direction moving forward, which I'm glad I did. 

You see, through all that deal and all that turmoil, did you ever have any aspirations or did you ever have a plan or anything that you wanted to try and achieve or were you just doing that?  Psycho, just lost.  

I think, I'll be honest, until the project really sparked the idea and came about, I didn't have a sense of what I wanted to achieve in life.

I thought I did when I joined the army. But, until I was about 29, 30.  And I'm 33 now. I didn't know that there was a space for my qualities to earn a living, to just be a part of society properly. And I think we get very congested with what we learn at school to then what we do as a career is like the kind of.

Holy grail of success. And for me, I never got to see that holy grail. I wasn't academic in the slightest. Like I had keen interests in certain fields like geography, history, this, that, and the other, but I never excelled in it. I was very dyslexic and still quite dyslexic today and just learning was a rocky road.

So that looking. Everyone else get good grades and go on to university, college, this, that, and the other. I couldn't do this. Every time I tried to do it, I would just fail. Like I went to college, failed at that, even though I was very good at it. So I went to college. As a mechanic, I really wanted to be a mechanic for Formula One when I was in my teens.

I was getting on the path, but the stuff I was doing outside of work and outside of home followed me to work and that kind of crumbled as well. So that was my last chance at the thing I wanted to do in life. And then after that, it was fake it until you make it and guesstimate where to go. And it's been a damaging process.

Just not knowing there's a community, not only a community, but a possible avenue for income and just self development through, like, my traits, which is more towards outdoors activities and stuff like that. So yeah, I didn't really know.  

Thanks for sharing all that. I mean, it's fantastic context for some of the projects initiatives we'll talk about in a minute.

So the military sounds like that was the turning point then. I think, what is it, eight years or so you spent in the military?  

What 

was that like then getting in with that type of attitude, that experience, you know, in a bit of a spin? What was it like? 

Yes, I tell you what, so to give you a bit of context on just me in general, to give listeners the overarching tribulation I had at this time.

When I thought about joining the army, I've done a deep dive, went on the YouTube. took in as much information as I could to make the definitive decision and basically chew the fat down to the bone and have everything in front of me. So am I able to make that sacrifice to turn my life around? And the answer was yes, all the way through.

It didn't matter if I was getting sent away, away from family. That was what I was used to. And then I thought the process was going to be like. World War II, like you queue up and you get stamped and off you go. You're getting in a plane or something and you're fighting wars. And that was, that was where the information kind of I got missed with.

And as I went to the recruiting center, I was very interested in joining Royal Marines. And then at the same time, they had an army induction as well. And. Everyone there at that day who wanted to go Navy had the opportunity to have an insight on the army as well I basically put my name down for both of them and then the Royal Marine side of things was just a longer Process for me to just get myself into stability where the army was just like if you choose this this and this we could get you in in a matter of months and  That is what I needed.

I needed this to be my income. I needed it to be my housing. It was kind of the be all and end all.  I chose my core. So it was a Royal Logistics Core just because that was the quickest pipeline to get in. And then as the process was going on, I got informed that due to my criminal convictions and stuff like that.

I would have to wait a number of years, which ended up being four years, until I could actually go into the next process of doing selection and then getting into phase one. So that was a big ton of bricks for my hope and dreams at the time. It was, well, not even the military. It's 

years. It's a 

long 

time.

Christ. 

It was a swim against the tide and not to sound biblical or anything it I do feel like that was the test of do you really want this like you're gonna have to earn this one and I took it as that I used to smoke weed, smoke cigarettes, drink this out and the other all the stuff as a teenager typically does nowadays or then and  all of that stopped from I got told I got four years I got that four year window. 

everything stopped and I started training as if I was already in phase one and I used that as my drive. I used everything and I just kept on talking it into existence essentially and then that four year point came along. I got in, got past selection, got into phase one training and again you've got to do a medical there and then in my medical notes it said something about seeing a psychiatrist.

They then had to back troop me. So you start with a bunch of blokes, essentially, and hopefully through the 14 weeks you stay with those blokes, whoever make it to the end where I got. I think week three, no week two, sorry. That's when another medical happened. And then they saw something in my notes about the psychiatrist and stuff like that, which they didn't flag up before and that threw another spanner in the works.

So I had to get back troops and put into this platoon of injured slash people who were leaving the army. And I was in this room. for I believe six weeks I was in this room for six weeks of people who were just slating the army saying I didn't want to be here anyway this and all of this was just a mental test.

I had the four years got into a troop loved the blokes I was with and then I wasn't with them and I was in this misfit kind of platoon of. People who just didn't want anything to do with it. They were almost going, mate, why don't you just get a job doing this and this and just giving you ideas and deterring you from the ultimate goal, really.

And I think for that reason, I got a lot of props from the training staff. When I did go into my next platoon, they obviously read the notes. They knew a lot about me and.  I completely forgot when I joined as well. I had dreadlocks  and  anyone who knows anything about the army dreadlocks are probably not like a thing you could have.

But when I've done my research as a Rastafarian, you're able to practice your faith with wearing your dreadlocks. But there was literally a sentence of the regulations because every kind of religion has like a set. regulations of dress code and decorum kind of thing. And for us, it was just a sentence.

It must be neat and tidy. So every day I'm just getting told to cut my hair. Do you want to split this, that, and the other? Like there was just so much barrier stopping me from being the essential gray man where you're just, you're getting through your training and you make it to the end. You're not really noticed for anything good or for anything bad.

You kind of just want to be that middle happy. happy go lucky guy within training and they do tell you that and I stuck out like a sore thumb. And again, I like to think that all of these little pivotal moments where I could have just called it a day and gone elsewhere and gone back to my old life. 

Those were the tests for me more than the training was. And that came to fruition because when the training did get tough, and we was like out in the exercise area, in the rain, in the wind, in the cold, in the snow, all these hard times where the blokes are just miserable, can't wait to get back into a warm bed.

I was just laughing, like I was the happy guy. And even at these times. I would be one of the switched on guys, not blowing my own trumpet kind of thing, but it was informed to me from the training staff, like one of them I really looked up to, which is amazing because not a lot of people get a chance to look up to the staff.

But one of them, I found him to be pretty much the action man who I wanted to be. So I kind of kept on asking him for extra tricks of the trade kind of thing. And I think he took me under his wing a little bit for that. And I think that really got me through. That experience of phase one was where my life did change and where I realised who I wanted to become and where I wanted to go as kind of things changed and evolved but that was where everything kind of was set in concrete of my direction.

It must have been quite something to not really have that purpose and aim for that. to materialize through that within the army. So eight years in the army, then I ran a number of challenges within that. What type of skills did you, because obviously we'll come on to like the projects and all the adventure stuff.

So what type of skills and education for the outdoors did you learn in the army? Did they teach you all your navigational stuff or did that all? 

Yeah, so that is actually kind of. The sowing the seed of the name of the project. So when it's still in training at this point, you get all your basic training.

So you get your basic soldiering skills and drills where you learn how to navigate, read a map, strip a weapon, fire a weapon, the rules and laws, all the stuff you need to do to do your basic soldiering. And. I still remember to this day, we're sitting, getting death by PowerPoint, sitting there, probably falling asleep half the time.

But then as soon as it was to do with navigation, something I've never done before. And for some reason, I think the image of seeing, like, my mum driving with a big A4 map and, like, navigating without a sat nav was, like, I didn't want to learn that skill. And I think that's where I started switching on.

And then, as you learn, your bearings, your, everything in the classroom is pretty much box standard, or your Eastings and Northings.  And then, True North became a thing, like, when you're orientating the map and stuff like that, you go off True North and not Magnetic North, and, or vice versa, depending on how you're navigating.

I don't know why, just that little piece in that lesson has stayed with me, but I didn't know what for, now I do,  moving into the present day.  I was fascinated with the ideology of just navigating, essentially being able to go anywhere you want, as long as you've got two feet and you've got a sense of direction and a map and compass.

And that for me was one of those skills, the last skill I needed to kind of home in what I already had in the sense of being able to find my way. So that was probably the fundamental skill I learned. And then I would say Learning to live off the land, like the bushcraft type esque stuff, or soldiering, where you're digging holes or trenches and you're learning how to fortify your surrounding areas and the reasons behind all of this stuff, like you're keeping animals away.

How to admin yourself in the field was fascinating for me and a lot of people found that boring. So again, that was another brick to the building of Who I wanted to become was what I found my interests in were just not what the others found interest in and then I've got the opportunities to do adventure training, done Nordic skiing, done two seasons of Nordic skiing, which again, I put my hand up to go skiing.

I thought I was going down slopes and eating pizzas and it wasn't that. It was very athletic to say the least, but it was again, very athletic. I think that also gave me this mental foundation for challenges, like that was one of the hardest things I had ever done up to that point, skiing uphill with a bag on your back full of maybe 25, maybe 30 kgs.

It was horrible. Yeah, it's not coming out your eyeballs and blood. Vomit coming out your nose. It was horrible, but I loved it at the end because of how fit it made me and everything else. So I think that's my reference whenever I do anything hard was that first uphill ski. Got to do a lot of adventure training, doing like abseiling, this and the other.

I didn't really pay attention at this point. I was kind of just enjoying the moment and just doing what the instructor would say, but never really had interest in these bits. But again, with training, when you're putting everything you've learned into practice run, you're going out and you're essentially backpacking with a heavy pack on your back, tabbing essentially over miles and multiple different kinds of terrain. 

And I enjoyed that, like everyone else was like snapped, they didn't like it one bit, and I kind of enjoyed that bit as I like feeling a bit of discomfort. I like feeling pain in a weird way. And then, yeah, because of that, I found Well, I found a good group of friends and then we started hiking outside of the army on my free time and that kind of connected the dots there.

Fantastic. 

So, did it make you feel a little bit like a kid again? Maybe when you're in that and getting access to all these adventures but almost as an adult on a different trajectory? 

100%. I still say it now where I'm playing a soldier but getting paid for it. Where back in the day I was a kid shooting BB guns and crawling around in bushes.

I'm now doing it as an adult, getting paid for it with intent to kind of utilize my skills. Yeah, I take the mick out of people of my mates who are still serving. I'm like, you're still playing toy soldier,  camouflage pajamas. Like it is one of, not to discredit anyone in service or doing the service, but I think the banter. 

of that just shows you, yes, we make a sacrifice, but I'm very able to make light of any dark situation in a sense. There was hard times and there was a lot of time missed with important people, which I won't get back again. And  a few people I've lost as well and stuff like that.  ultimately there is always a brighter side to what we have to go through.

Yeah, the discipline side and sacrifice and stuff. It's not to be underestimated or glossed over. So, so let's talk about the True North project then. What is it? What are the motivations, your objectives and what do you want to achieve?  

Yes, I won't go into why it got created. I think I've spoken about that enough and people can look into the website and everything else.

But the aim of it, ultimately, the end goal would be a fantastic goal of being able to facilitate, not diluted, it's the wrong word, but miniature versions of the expeditions I'm going on to do. I'll be able to provide a service and get youngsters. nominated to come along for free, essentially. And so not out of their pocket, I will be able to have a team of mine to take them to, let's say, Everest Base Camp, possibly climb a mountain like 6, 000 meters.

And then when I go to Antarctica again, I'll look into doing other Nordic esque expeditions around that area. I mean, pretty much every expedition that I do for myself and for the research and everything behind that and the fundraising. My aim is to go to pretty much every remote location and try to sustain myself as unsupported as possible.

Like, I mean, the most I would have is like a two man team who are doing it with me. Yeah, so the intent was to go on expeditions. And document it in such a way where I could then deliver the experience and the information that I gathered. On a plane of understanding for young people, which I think was done well when I was growing up, you had David Attenborough's, you had this lot of those people getting out of the system, especially on TV and what you might hear in books and just in schools.

So I want to be able to reinvent the wheel through my expeditions and experiences to impact. and encourage young people to chase and find their true north essentially and then give people opportunities to come along on these expeditions as well. Fantastic 

Deon, I love it, I really do. I think particularly in this day and age you've talked about your own background but I mean that's still happening to kids all over the world in our cities and you know as a father family not in that situation fortunately but You know, the challenges of technology, my little one, you know, picking an iPad up and things just like I want us to all raise kids and encourage young adults, young adolescents to be able to tell Flora from Fauna and not TikTok from Instagram.

So the more that we can do through these initiatives, and I think it's a very important thing you're doing through youth initiative to try and change the curriculum as well, albeit in England, you know, Scottish, obviously. Slightly different education system, but I mean, do you want to talk to that and you know, what you're trying to do there?

Cause I think that's really important through the youth initiative. So obviously expeditions, there's a lot that we can learn from that as well, but trying to change a national level, how we approach outdoor education. Can you talk about that? 

Yeah, as I started, I want to give a kind of overview of the project, really how the education system really came to light for me.

And as I was doing certain challenges, so it was around the time of 2021.  I was about to climb 12 mountains in four days in Snowdonia, and this was just to test myself and my abilities preparing for Everest, and it was the height. And elevation of Everest from sea level. So there was a lot of good reasonings behind that challenge.

And once I achieved it, I had a school from Leeds reach out to me and they said, look, I hope you don't mind, but we've actually named one of our classes after you. 

And I was 

like, what have I done to even have this honor kind of thing? And I was very blown away from that. And I got talking with them. And basically just offered to come and just deliver a talk and speak and introduce myself to the class and that turned into the class being the school and I still work with them today because they're just fantastic and seeing,  I think what really highlighted it was the fact that this school was all based around students.

Thanks. Mountaineers and mountaineering like each year group is called a certain mountain range like Himalayas and so on and so forth. I was just blown away by being in a school just like that. I've never seen it or experienced it. And it really hit home because that's when I was starting to think, okay, I'm doing expeditions,  but I'm not doing it for myself gratitude or anything like that.

There's a whole generation there who need some sort of.  Inspiration, I would say, and I know the inspiration comes from my childhood and seeing what children and young adults are going through today is very similar and probably a bit harder now because they just get left to it. They haven't really got any sustainable kind of influence for them to.

deter them from technology or deter them from loitering in the street. There's not a lot there from what I could see and I think deeper you go into the city that becomes more apparent. So through that process I was also asked to kind of be a guest and also mentor to train a few members of the staff of the school to get competent to take a year group.

out on the hills in the Yorkshire Dales.  We've done that. We worked with local communities and well schools and health and safety regulations to make sure this could all work. And I think through all of that experience, I was just like, well,  there's what's missing. Like whenever I went into a school or something, I'm dissecting.

What they're doing right and what they're doing wrong and what haven't they got as a resource and I think One of the main things when it comes to getting kids outside of the school gates is the health and safety Regulations and the processes which are like the red tape what stops someone going out of their way the teacher To create these spaces and these opportunities and not only that most of the time it's in their free time So, on a weekend or over the holiday, this is the time they get the opportunity to go out to the mountains or go for a hike or, or whatever have you.

I think that's where the problem lies. It's left to the organizations to pick their perfect opportunity to get outdoor exposure. So, That's where I kind of went back to the drawing board and I created the initiative to just get outdoor education into the school curriculum. Starting, I like to say starting small, but it's a pretty ambitious goal anyway, but starting with  most, 99 percent of state schools because they're the most underfunded.

They're the most, I think underestimated is a great word for it because you underestimate the power of kids. And teachers who actually want to just teach in their own way and learn in their own environment and new situations instead of just a classroom and all the rest of it. And when I got to speak at private schools, it was a different conversation altogether.

And the conversation I would have with them wasn't the case of the access to doing things like one of the schools I went to, they were just about to go and do their second trip to do Everest Space Camp. Um. And I was just like,  what?  And then  I wanted to kind of create this hub of community, sense of community.

Let's put it into kind of plain terms where. The education system, whether it's private sector or state or anything else, we're all wanting the same outcome. We're all wanting the best outcome for the progression of youngsters. So why does there feel like a massive divide between them as a community? So again, if there was an Everest base camp, Trip from a private school.

Is there a possibility if there's one more space there? At least one of the local state schools would be able to nominate a student to go with that other school That the ones who are going on the trip and that conversation sounded hopeful. So again, this is something I want to At least bridge the gap between sectors and classes, I guess, and just give an open opportunity to people, which I think is necessary, and just utilize people's resources.

So that's kind of the congested, complicated version of what I want to create. But looking at what the conversation post COVID has been a lot about mental health and utilizing the outdoors. and the benefits it has. The conversations out there, you can Google it, everyone understands. When you look into the government organisations, you can see ministers of state, especially the education sector, they're putting budgets towards outdoor education or towards green spaces for schools and nurseries. 

But you can't, when you look down the rabbit hole, you can't really see where it's been utilized.  And I feel that's also a trouble can of worms as well. So that's just my perspective. So to kind of brush past that, it's just getting a conversation in parliament with the right people behind the conversation, including myself, to spearhead the fact that we can implement  outdoor education.

at some degree. I have a percentage of each year group means a percentage of outdoor exposure excluding PE and a learning environment outside of the school gates. You can still learn geography, it's practical. You can still learn history, it's practical. You can still learn maths, math reading, you can do a bit of maths with that.

Like all these things I think you can learn first hand. through the outdoor experience, if it's taught correctly. And there's not a lot of things to be misplaced. It's exactly what the military done. Like, that's how I learned most of my stuff I know today. It wasn't in school. It was not because it was militant and rigid.

It was because the classroom setting was a theory, and then there was a practical. And I think today's day and age,  Because of technology, because of TikTok culture and everything else, our attention span has dropped dramatically. So to encourage attention, you do a theory based thing and you take it out and you go and practice these skills.

And there's nothing really to it apart from just having the right people in place and the right training and the right staff who  can just have their developments within the house. To make that happen. And that's kind of my overarching kind of goal and ambition with the youth initiative is to be able to go into institutes, if not with the support of the government and people like Ofsted and, and stuff like that, but go into these institutes, get them feeling comfortable and competent with the abilities to do this and practice it.

Like you can have it with maybe start with 10 schools. Think of a new curriculum based kind of learning format, put it into practice, do six months of that, or maybe a year of that, and then see the figures, and I can almost guarantee that the whole circumference of students, teachers, work ethic, education, merit,  all the stats will fall in line and prove to be worthwhile, and again, I think it will just bring it up to date to today's community mindset and attention span and everything else like that.

And I've probably missed a lot of things in that, but hopefully people can understand that  I'm not trying to throw away the old ways of education, but we're trying to limit the fact that the stress of how they're learning today is partly the reason of. Some of the stats and statistics may be mental health, may it be successful exams, may it be dropouts, all of these things I think could benefit from an outdoor perspective.

The world is changing at a dramatic pace when you think about technology and stuff, and the attention span is a fantastic point, but the education system is still very rigid. I mean, I struggled at school quite a lot. a lot as well because I'm very much a kinesthetic learner and so I, you know, I just really struggled and it wasn't until I kind of broke out of that and then, you know, I done a lot of self teaching on stuff at my own pace and I kind of learned from that but that was in my own environment and it's These classroom environments, you know, it can't be 100 percent of that all the time.

And I mean, you talk about PE, physical education, you could still combine that with, you know, with the outdoors. It's, I think, yeah. How close are you to having those conversations in Parliament? 

So I was getting there. We was on the path of success to getting there, but well, thanks to the elections, everyone who had a petition on the website has got told, well, the, the, the board or the committee who kind of,  processes of petitions is no longer, and they're going to have to re employ people, so therefore Every petition that people have got there and almost got to the finish line has got to restart again and repopulate, which for me is a spanner is no skin off my nose, because I think  from the experience and the conversations I've had with people like yourselves and just the wider community from teachers to parents to students,  they all agree.

So, it's just about once, I think, after today, people might be able to kind of repopulate their petitions.  So, in the next week or so, I would like to say that I'll be able to basically put the same petition out there, which is integrating outdoor education into the curriculum. The first kind of point of contact would be to get.

Signatures on that petition and anyone who can kind of support that by either signing or sharing and just getting the word out there with their families, friends and communities, that would be the greatest thing because I think strength works in numbers and anyone who's listened to this conversation who agrees.

With the intent of what the aim is, I think a couple of seconds signing a petition, which you can just sign and forget about, I think it works for a greater cause. That's like the first thing, but again, a project and initiative like this also needs funding to become what it needs to become and do all the things it needs to do.

So investment, anyone who's listening, really the investors be happy to talk so you can find my email on. On the website, which is truenorthproject. co. uk and just, yeah, anything where people feel like they can make change either through myself or through their selves, like the youth initiative. Yes, I created it and many other organizations are out there doing similar work. 

But I truly believe this is what I'm here to do. As crazy as it sounds, I want to be the kind of spearhead of ATT& CK. And it's not even just my intent, it's everyone's. It's literally the futures and the well being of your children. Literally counts on this. 

And we'll do whatever we can to share the message, Deon, via this, when it goes live.

And I think you touched on there, you know, we are at a point where we're coming up from a general election in the UK and by the time this is produced and goes live, we're likely to have a  hopefully a new government. 

And yeah, I 

don't want to get into politics per se, but it should not change  the message regardless of who is in power, because this is incredibly important.

And it's,  it's quite surprising that That nobody's been really championing this at this type of level or angle is quite odd when you think about it, it's, it's kind of, you can't see the woods for the trees to you as a. 

It seems pretty transparent, like, well, not transparent, very simple for me, even yourselves or whatever, right? put a pro and con of what the education system is now and what the aim is of the Youth Initiative and the True North Project.  And I can guarantee you the pros outweigh the cons just in how it could look.

and how people can perform in education, overall well being, like the outdoors is a fantastic space to learn about yourself as an individual and it's a fantastic place to learn how to be a team player, be determined, be resilient, like these are all factors I think we have We're slowly, well, actually, no, we're pretty quickly forgetting these traits.

We're kind of, without getting into the kind of political stance on it, we're, we're kind of going into everyone's a winner. Without trying where I think the outdoors shows you what you're capable of and tests your limits to give you the tools  in life. I think you need to be resilient in the workplace or at home or to be confident to stand up to bullying or that space for mental well being like, it's just there's so much good for it.

Like, there's a reason why they're prescribing it on the NHS. So why is it that the future of our country, right?  isn't being pushed in that same direction isn't learning and developing the best way they can look at 

what this island has to offer look at the wild spaces the green spaces the blue spaces it's shocking that some of kids across this nation and includes you know scotland island wales in that as well you know there's look i mean i was at i think the kendall mountain festival last year and there was uh cal major was talking about i think she took a group of kids from somewhere and Scotland, maybe Glasgow or something like that.

And they had never seen the ocean. And it's like 20 miles away, 25 miles away from where they were. And it's like, and it's shocking. And I mean, I had a guest on another guest actually. And he had a quote. It was about planting the seed of adventure. And I think the more that we can do that with kids. And the more they can get access to the outdoors and the more that they can see that these things are accessible, they can cultivate that mindset and that other hobbies.

They know there's more than technology. They know there's more than hanging about the street corner or getting into trouble or whatever it may be. And so, I mean, I would say any parent or anyone that the stories that may have impacted them or touched their lives at some point that may be listening to this, I think you need to You know, go and fill in that petition.

You need to help support this as a cause, because what we can do generationally, if we get this right, then yeah. And it just makes me wonder what, what are we doing in Scotland as well? So, 

and like to kind of finish up on that is right. I think there's a big issue with for lots of better words, the patriotic kind of arc of what we're proud to be British or, you know what I mean?

I think that's getting lost very quickly as well. You can tell by that kind of. Current affairs, like, obviously, like. National service and stuff like this that probably the definitive of most young 18 year olds who are willing to sign up for that is very limited. But from my standpoint as well, I wasn't very patriotic when I grew up.

I was very Bar humbug about the country and stuff like that. But as soon as I started seeing, Oh my God, like, is this what we've got to offer the, like,  it blows you away. And it actually, it, it reignites that kind of patriotic flame. I think this country does need, like, if you learn to love the land you live on, you want to protect it more.

You want to see it more. You want to, you want to encourage it. Like, just more  like, yeah, you want to love the land we're on. Right. And I think we could get that back through the, like the young generation learning to love and seeing the things they don't see. Like you mentioned people not seeing the sea.

When I was with the group of kids in Leeds, like the teachers were talking about how they pointed at a herd of cows and called them sheep. Like, this is a shocking thing. These are things we need to know about like livestock, agriculture, like there's a lot of things we're missing here, which I know me and you yourself and our kind of generation had because of our parents or grandparents, if not school, and even in school, we kind of knew what a sheep and a cow and the sea was, and we did get little opportunities here and there to see it. 

But I think now more than ever, the outdoors isn't to be,  again, lost for better words, a tree hugger, hippie, it isn't about growing your hair under your armpits and going out living off the land.  But it's about what it can provide mentally and physically, and just that community spirit of adventure, bringing that back.

I think we had it years ago, and I think we can get that back. 

Yeah, you're here. And I think, just again, I just want to say this, when it's in my head, anyone that's listening to this, that's a parent, a carer, or whatever, if you see any signs of social isolation, or anything, with any sort of kid, or anyone in your family.

Your circle, get them outdoors, even if it's only for an afternoon or a day, trying to plant that seed and get it. Cause the, the wellbeing aspect to this, who knows who you'll save from potential depression, conflict, trouble, whatever that may be. So listen and take action. Switching lanes a little bit Deon, I just want to kind of move over from the advocacy side and all that good work you're doing.

Touching on your adventures because you've got a bit of a plan haven't you? To underrepresented black people within, or black men actually, within the adventure community. You've got an ambition haven't you? To get to Everest, Antarctica. How's that going? How's your plans going with all of that? 

So in theory on paper looks fantastic but When I started this kind of ambitious goal of mine and bringing the project along with it,  I knew my position.

I knew my finance. I knew everything. Skill wise, it would be a steep learning curve. I would come across many hurdles. And I think because of that, that was why I done it. And I had a friend asked me who I hike with quite a lot, who is now one of my kind of  project partners.  And He mentioned, like, why are you the only black person we see on the mountains?

And I didn't realize that was a, like, a factor, and I'm someone back in normal, kind of, the machine and the city life, everyday life. I kind of maybe think about race, color, cre like, at least once or twice a day, and I think everyone kind of does. Whenever I went to the outdoors, may it be Wales, Scotland,  never had that cross my mind one bit until he mentioned it.

And then that kind of, I kind of retraced and went, Oh, what? There isn't actually many ethnic minorities, especially black people, doing adventurous stuff. And I, and I know there's a bit of. kind of stereotype in there and we build our own stereotypes and there's just probably access and accessibility to play with that.

So that's why I was just like through the aim of climbing Everest originally and being the first black Englishman to do that  was just going to be the highlighting factor of the message that I continued afterwards. And that still is the aim. Since I started the project, I believe  three years ago now, there has been more ethnic groups out there, and it's so good to see, and every group is different, like, you've got people like Black Girls Hikes, where it's like a female strong ethnic group, and they're doing so well, I think the founder just received an MBE on OBE, which Blew my mind.

So like the conversation from where I started to where it is now is completely different. Like, I feel a little bit apart of that to say the least, which is really good, but I'm not necessarily focused on race, essentially. And I think there was a deterrent and an unfortunate one, actually, when I started this and talked about being the first Black Englishman to summit Everest. 

Literally, all the trolls came out at once and said, what's colour got to do with it? Just climb the mountain. Um, so like, and there was just so many comments what just came in from something I thought was necessary. And they know who they are, if they are listening.  But it's a tricky one to find that. That space where you want to encourage not just your own people, but people just everywhere to do something for themselves.

So  because of that, that's where the youth initiative really did hit home for me. It was that moment of realization. It's not about color, but  the things I'm going to be doing. And hopefully  if all goes well. possible TV and opportunities and documentaries and stuff like that comes to light, then all that hard work shows someone like me who's similar to the people who I want to engage with.

I'm just picturing myself as a kid and seeing someone like me on the TV doing something like Climbing Everest. just paves the way so much and just seeing that I think would inspire a lot of people from hard backgrounds to chase their dreams like this project will continue to be  one of the hardest things I've done but finding my true north in it was the realization that every day I'm working towards that goal and the financial struggles, the family struggles, the sacrifices and commitments I've got to make to make the greater outcome possible is more than the army.

Like I've seen my family. Probably less, even though I now live at home and being a bit present than the army, it's just been, it's, it's a very hard ordeal, but it's something I won't stop until the mission is like successful, the aim and the intent of it is successful. So I  kind of went on a tangent there, but, um, so then the Everest thing is looking prosperous.

There's like, again, getting sponsorship to make this happen. Cause I didn't get a golden spoon.  Again, financially, it's tough, but also doable, but  because of all the kind of naysayers through Everest and everything, I think personally, I needed something else. And that kind of led me to just want to go and do.

expeditions as solo as possible to home in that message. So the idea is to do Everest, come back.  So next year, go to Everest around April times, and then once successfully summited, come back, repack my kit for Antarctica, and then pretty much hopefully do Antarctica's South Pole solo ski expedition in the same year.

And hopefully I think I will be the first. black person to do that, or at least black British to do that. So  like, again, as much as I kind of pipe on about being the first to do something, that's not the aim. I don't like glorification in that way. I kind of want to just. Do it for the right reasons, rather than kind of just listen, 

if it can inspire people, you know, just rolling back to what you said about the trolls.

There's trolls for everything. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't always be trolls for them. Quite, quite right. I didn't know we could swear by 

the way. 

Yeah, I'm just going to say it comes with the territory. So, but yeah, honestly. Deon, people have always got a lot to say about a lot of things. It's opinions.

Everyone's got one. But like you say, if anyone's listened to this and listened to where you've came from, the struggles and the identity crisis and the lack of access. And if someone that's going through that or that may go through that and can see you on a podcast on BBC, whatever it is on TV or at the expo standing on stage talking about it, it just shows you what is, you know, what people can do.

And again, it's just about planting that seed. and showing people what's possible. So yeah, fuck the trolls, just keep going. 

I'm hard on myself. I think due to where I've come from and upbringing and stuff like that, I kind of feel like I've been dragged up in that sense. And I always. I'm my worst critic and the only times I realize that I'm actually doing something worthwhile is when people like yourselves come after it.

And the fact that I get opportunities to speak in front of people, like when I started this project, I never thought about speaking on the stage. I thought I would be speaking to students in schools at the very like best and talking about TV and possible gigs doing that is just something.  Like, I never want to be famous at all, but I think every, every kind of.

Step to this ladder, I think is necessary to make the message happen and have people who really resonate with, with the journey and see that,  like, I had a really good friend of mine again, she's amazing, but we had a brief conversation and she's been in the TV world and that kind of thing behind camera quite a lot.

And  hearing her say that she could really see the passion and the authentic kind of, uh, I forget the word, but like, just wanting to do good, it will show more than the ones who are just kind of doing it for the money or the game or whatever it is, right? People like that tend to kind of fall off when they fall off, but  this could be the hardest thing I do for the rest of my life.

It is the only thing I'm going to. continue doing, regardless of how it looks. 

There's something in doing good for other people as well, and it's great that, you know, if you're passionate about it, you know, and it inspires you and it lights you up, and if it can help others, then it's, it's amazing. I tell you what, I, I have a photo in my phone from your speech with my little girl.

I took it from standing behind when she was watching and you had your, you had your slides up and you had a slides and it was kids in a school or something, and it captivated her and I, I took it on, on my phone, on it. Oh, you're gonna have to,  to me, man. I, I, I, yeah, 

again, like having like your daughter come up and speak with me and yourself and, and other young people.

It was predominantly the young people came up afterwards and.  I think that that was my massive tick and pat on the back for me, but also seeing that people are  of the age I'm trying to target are resonating with the aim and the intention behind it. And it just, it just shows that what we're talking about here is, is, is an important thing to kind of champion.

It really is. And talk about the champion. Sorry to cut you off for the youth initiative as well. The way we're amplifying the message is having champions, people who are already doing great work within the outdoor space or have passion for the youth initiative in general. So again, if people want to be a champion again, feel free to email me.

We can have that conversation and hopefully get as many people.  

Excellent. Yeah, we'll do as much as we can when this goes live, Deon, to get as many people because as you know, when we come on to the closing traditions part of what I'm trying to do is just trying to inspire people to get out themselves or encourage other people to get out into the outdoors and have some adventures, explore, just live a little bit differently.

This has been fantastic. I've thoroughly enjoyed your time so far and we've been on for what, an hour and 20 already Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I can write more. No, it was brilliant. No, no, no.  It's brilliant. And it's all, it's all really important. I was going to ask you if you had any big unrealized  adventures, but  Top of Everest to the South Pole, it doesn't get, it doesn't get any more Yeah, 

uh, but funnily enough, I, so in August, this hasn't been said, so this is kind of like the release of the news, I guess.

So my aim is to train for the Antarctica side of things by dragging two tyres behind me, simulating a poke. But I'm doing that from the source of the River Thames and then going all the way to Woolwich by foot, unsupported, um, in hopefully under 10 days. So I'm going to do that in August and then myself and my kind of colleague slash project partner, we've decided to summit.

It was originally going to be, so we got a concept. Let me actually brief you on this. Sorry. Um, so we got a project concept called the ADR, which is ascent, descent and repeat. So. Many people we can climb a mountain, we get back happy days, but the hardest bit is to continue that tradition of going up again.

So that's where the Ascent, Descent, Repeat is. So we're going to do the first of its kind, essentially, of an ADR, where it was supposed to be, or it was going to be Snowdon, but because of the fact of  I think Snowdon's  one of the most popular mountains. There's a lot of incidents at the moment. There's a lot of congestion and just traffic on the mountain.

And I think the national parks are really fond of it as much as it's great to have people go out and explore, but there's many other mountains to go see. So we're going to do the ascent, descent repeat on Carder Idris over the space of. Three days, and we're aiming to climb it around 20 to 25 times. So that would be the equivalent of, I think, around seven marathons.

And then the ascent would be around two and a half summits of Everest as well. So we'll be doing that in September. Again, for charity and other things that will come out in due course.  

So, rolling into the two closing traditions on the show, one of which is the call to adventure and the second being the pay it forward suggestion.

So, what would your call to adventure be, Deon? 

So, I would probably go with  The call to adventure is probably there with everyone, right? This is gonna sound so mega cliche, right? But just do what your heart set on. I think most people, we toy with the idea, but we might not know what we're doing.  Figure out something.

It doesn't have to be. Like too extreme. It doesn't have to be extreme at all.  I would say find some mountains or something, an activity you enjoyed as a kid that normally relates with us as adults and go and do it. 

Excellent. So yeah, so have a think back to what you've done as a kid, what you enjoyed, what made you happy.

Particularly in the outdoors, and if you get stuck, give Deon a buzz.  Fantastic. 

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit adventurediaries. com slash podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small.

Because sometimes, we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun. And keep paying it forward.