“Safety Record of Outward Bound Sri Lanka Outstanding” says Outward Bound International

The Bi-annual Safety and Quality Review of Outward Bound International, for Sri Lanka was conducted by Major John Hasell, Consultant of Outward Bound International, Utah, USA. He visited Sri Lanka for safety and quality review operations of Outward Bound, Sri Lanka recently.

John was educated in Britain and spent 20 years in the British Army during which he was an Instructor at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, was Chief Instructor at the Army Outward Bound School, took part in several Himalayan expeditions, commanded the Joint Services Mountain Training Centre and served with the Brigade of Gurkhas in Malaysia during the confrontation with Indonesia.. He came to Canada in 1969 to start the Canadian Outward Bound School near Keremeos where he was School Director for two years, before helping launch the second School in Ontario. Since 1988 he has been a freelance explorer of possibilities, concentrating on helping people and organisations make the very best use of their resources and fulfil their potential.

He examined closely the activities, systems, procedures, processes and protocols of the Outward Bound Trust of Sri Lanka and scrutinized in detail the safety & quality aspects in respect of the Professional Development Training Programmes conducted.

He was present at the following Professional Development Programmes conducted for the management staff of:- Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd. And Sanasa Development Bank Ltd. by Outward Bound Sri Lanka at the Outward Bound Centre, Dambulu Oya Family Park, and Hotel Sigiriya, Sigiriya and observed carefully all outdoor activities, review and evaluation procedures.

He also inspected the equipment, stores and reviewed the procedures including the emergency protocols of Outward Bound Sri Lanka.

Subsequently, at a briefing for the Trustees and Executive Committee of Outward Bound Sri Lanka he stated that he was fully satisfied with the safety procedures and systems and ancillary matters as far as Outward Bound Sri Lanka was concerned.

He was also very impressed with the high professional standard, leadership and communication skills of the trainers and their capacity to debrief and process the learning outcome and relating such learning for practical action in their career and the organisational context.

On the whole, he remarked that the safety record of Outward Bound Sri Lanka was outstanding including the excellence in quality displayed at the programmes as evidenced through the feedback from the participants.

Outward Bound International carries out an International Safety Review of all 32 worldwide country programmes once in two years, while the national OB organisations have to carry out annual Safety Reviews internally with national external reviewers.

Safety of participants is a prime concern of Outward Bound.

Outward Bound provides Professional Development using adventure as the media.