Everyone should have the opportunity to have an adventure, to develop themselves, to experience new places and meet new people. As a result Challenge Wales offers bursary funding for those who may need extra financial support to jump onboard. We always want young people to raise some of their voyage fees themselves, no matter how small, but if you need some additional help then tapping into our bursary fund is a great option.

Bursary funding is created through trusts giving us funding, donations, the Challenge Wales membership scheme and our own fundraising.  Sometimes additional bursary funding is available for particular voyages.

The Challenge Wales bursary fund is currently available for both groups and individuals who are aged under 26 years on the first day of their voyage.

We are not here to provide bursary funding so that people can just have a ‘free’ voyage. One person in the Challenge Wales office works hard to find bursary funding for individuals and groups and it must be realised that when joining a voyage the participants are expected to take part in all activities onboard…..otherwise the boat won’t sail! For some this can be a challenge in itself but our volunteer crew are here to guide you.

Challenge Wales Bursary:
If you are based in the UK  and aged 12 – 25 years then you can apply for a Challenge Wales bursary to cover up to 40% of your voyage costs depending on availability. Anyone receiving bursary funding is required to write a voyage report after the trip to be submitted to the funder and is often part of the funding requirements.
If you only need some of the bursary and not all of it (so you need help paying anything between 1 and 40% of the cost)  then you can ‘pay what you can afford’ towards the voyage with the bursary covering the balance.

If you need more than a 40% bursary, then it is likely there are other funding opportunities available which may help you get onboard. Check out the details below. Bursary funding is subject to availability and will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.

Other bursary funds who might be able to help:

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Royal Thames Yacht Club Charitable Trust – Can provide funding for UK residents, aged 12 – 21 years who need financial assistance to undertake a sail training voyage and are severely disadvantaged financially. The Trust are particularly interested in supporting young people who are young carers, are in care, from lone parent families and/or are suffering financial hardship.  Challenge Wales needs to write and submit the application on your behalf so please get in touch with Challenge Wales office as soon as you can to talk about this funding. They have often provided funding for individuals ranging from £150 – £300.

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ASTO Hammond Innes Bursary – This fund is being allocated to young people who are not eligible for some of our other funding. However, this fund is extremely small but can help support groups and individuals usually from outside Wales on day or residential voyages or support young people from Wales when other funding isn’t eligible.

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Unpaid Carers Third Sector Grant – If you are an unpaid young carer and are part of a group then we have some funding available to help you jump onboard. Voyage and Sea and Tell (shore-side) activities available. This fund has been fully utilised and won’t be available for 2025.

Are there any other bursaries I might be eligible for?

If you are a youth group working with disadvantaged young people, then we might have funding available to fund between 40 – 90% of your voyage costs.

However, we always encourage individuals and youth groups to undertake their own fundraising. This could be saving birthday money, doing a cake bake sale, washing neighbours cars (with permission!), helping around the house, doing a sponsored walk or cycle etc.

If you are aged 16 – 25 years and looking for an adventure, but not part of a group then there is also bursary funding available and you will be able to join us on some of our residential adventures.

Please think if you need bursary funding before applying, if you don’t need as much bursary funding then please let us know so that we can help someone else get onboard. If you receive any bursary funding you will be required to write a voyage report within 3 weeks of your voyage end date, other conditions may apply depending on where the funding has come from.