Harry Scott

Hi, thanks for having me.

Yeah, so it was actually one of my silver linings from COVID.

So Barefooted started in 2020, so about halfway through the very first lockdown, because I was working in school camps and that sort of thing.

And so obviously schools weren't going to camp or going back to camp anytime soon.

So I kind of had the thought of like, well, if we can bring outdoor education to schools, maybe that might be something that they'll be keen for.

And then also just there was so much messaging from the government around wanting the kids to be outside and not stuck in classrooms all the time.

So it was like.

a perfect opportunity it was like my silver lining of of of that to kind of go okay it's time to go out on your own and kind of start start my thing and and and get kids passionate about their community like and get them so they uh uh

you know, spent so many years teaching kids about really cool marine reserves or regional parks and that they'll probably never come back to.

And so for me, it was like with Barefooted, if we can teach them the cool stuff to do in their school or in their local park, then for them to recreate that experience is so much more accessible and so much easier for them to do.

And I think that's,

been my big passion of like just allowing kids to have the chance to recreate it and to be passionate and to enjoy being outside again

Yeah, like...

for me it was like the outdoors being outside exploring playing is like a Kiwi rite of passage and it's part of our culture it's part of our identity it's who we are and that was getting lost because of accessibility you know because school camps were becoming more and more expensive so they couldn't go for as long or that EOTC

camp turned into a bit of just a checkbox for that for schools to kind of go okay we need EOTC we go to school camp done what is EOTC just for people who wouldn't be familiar with that education outside the classroom right and so it turned into a well from what I felt it started to turn into a bit of a token thing

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love school camp.

I can't wait to go on school camp with my kids once they get to that point and they have a place.

But I just think we also need to be equipping our tamariki with skills and the comfortability of being outside before they get to year four, five or six school camp.

Yeah.

And that was like one of my first programs that I ever developed for Barefooted was that...