City Kids Wilderness Project is a nonprofit outdoor education program for underserved and at-risk inner-city youths (ages 11 to 24) from the Washington, DC metropolitan area.  Our program, focused on experiential learning, joins youth and staff in a cooperative family atmosphere, and we utilize the outdoor, natural environment as a classroom for academic, recreational and life skills. These are valuable lessons for all individuals. At-risk youth, however, lack the systems—home, school and community—that can provide children with the necessary experiences, role models and support. Our program fills this void by offering school-year activities and events, summer camp, job training and academic scholarships.

We help the children transfer lessons learned while at City Kids to real life. The first step is to present the participants with a challenge. The challenge generally has several components physical, intellectual, interpersonal and intra-personal. 

For example, a backpacking trip into the wilderness involves learning outdoor survival skills, preparing the equipment, hiking on difficult terrain, carrying a heavy pack, dealing