Taking Stock of our 'Welcome' | Read the Hardly Reached Community Report

Image by Muhammad Muhsin Abd Rahman. Words by Rach Coleman and Leigh Rose

As an organisation we live and work by our values. They're like the skeleton of TFT - holding us together, and supporting what we do and how do it. Everyone is Welcomed is one we hold close - not just because it's important to us, but because it holds us accountable to the practice of being welcoming. To make sure everyone feels the door of TFT is open to them.

We wrote here a couple of years ago about communities often labelled 'hard to reach'. This label places responsibility on the communities themselves rather than on the systems that have historically underfunded, ignored or excluded them. This mirrors how responsibility for single-use pollution is often shifted onto the individual, with producers of these items. Like a system-wide bid to scapegoat, rather than divvy up responsibility so we can collectively work together to make change.

As with single-use pollution, we reject this framing and recognise that meaningful connections with these communities requires trust, representation and sustained presence. These people are not difficult to engage, it just doesn't happen often; as such they are Hardly Reached.

We also know that in the same way each trail is different, each community is too. To truly make people feel welcomed, invitations can't come from outside or be one-size-fits-all - they require local leadership, space to build trust, and the chance to engage over the long-term.

We built the Purposeful Adventure Fund around these values and with this thinking in mind. We raise money, supported by our partners, and then offer this to individuals and groups who face barriers to access connection to nature and adventure. Through the Fund we support TFT Community Hub leaders to build connections with Hardly Reached members of their own community - enabling them to share their own love of trail cleaning and the experience of environmental stewardship.

For the first time, we've captured some of these stories in a new Hardly Reached Communities Report. We're really proud to share this with you and hear your thoughts.

Image by Abbie Merritt

Seeing the Purposeful Adventure Fund come to life has been one of the most rewarding parts of our work our founding in 2019. It's allowed us to really practice being welcoming - and also to question deeply what this means when you're an environmental organisation.

It's also made us look hard at what we do currently, and how we can contribute to increasing representation across trail stewardship and the outdoors. We want to enable more people to experience (re)connection - and to see themselves reflected in the stories about environmental stewardship that we tell.

Looking to the future, we're continuing to support individuals and groups through the Purposeful Adventure Fund, equipping TFT Community Hubs to build relationships in their local area. We're also integrating this work into TFT projects beyond the fund - so it can part of the fabric of our work entirely. So every trail clean, Citizen Science Expedition, Trash Free Race and more truly reflects all who love and care for wild places.

There will be a time when these terms fall from our vocabulary - there's no longer Hardly Reached because everyone is there, enjoying the swell of pride in their chest at having taken care of their trails.

You can read our new Hardly Reached Communities Report here, and share your story in the comments.