Kurt Hahn founded Outward Bound in 1941 in response to a dire need to build tenacity and camaraderie in young British sailors. Hahn designed a program of increasing challenge and skill mastery to teach young sailors that they could persevere through difficulty, that they were resilient in the face of danger, and that they could survive even the most terrifying of situations.
While today’s risks are different than surviving the cold North Sea in a tiny lifeboat, many teens who participate in Outward Bound are in dire need of the same perseverance and stamina that Hahn’s sailors learned through the sea in the 1940s.
More than 70 years later, Minnesota’s Voyageur Outward Bound School (VOBS) continues to use Hahn’s model of progressive, experiential, outdoor challenge to build key social and emotional traits.
