It was supposed to be a quiet Sunday afternoon for lawyer Michael Spurling on April 3, 2004.Instead he could hear uproar and blaring police sirens as violent clashes broke out at a football match at the Wellington Oval, 500 metres from his mother’s home.It was that day the lawyer was called to action.Mr Spurling founded Raleigh Bermuda, an organisation that gives young people aged 17 to 25 a chance to take part in overseas volunteer work and self-development projects.Since 2005, the organisation has helped 83 young people complete ten week expeditions in India, Namibia, Malaysia, and Central America. It has boosted their confidence, expanded their horizons and put them on the right track to pursue their education or employment goals.But, after eight years as Raleigh Bermuda board chairman, Mr Spurling is stepping down. His successor Tasha Jones is expected to bring in “new energies, new ideas and maybe a totally new focus” to the role.For Mr Spurling the ‘ah-ha’ moment came shortly after returning to the Island having spent ten years living in Hong Kong and travelling extensively through Asia.It was that day in April 2004 when two men chased and attacked some other men at the St George’s football field with machetes, that made him question what could be done to help the Island’s young people.“It was shocking because I had never seen something like that here, I never heard of it happening here. It certainly didn’t happen in the 1980s when I lived here and came back from university and worked.“But what was even more shocking was they interviewed some youngsters who said ‘What’s the matter, they didn’t kill him, they just chopped him’.“And that really jolted me because it showed these particular youngsters had no values or their values were really corrupted and so then you start to hear about the gang war and gangs developing and so on.”Mr Spurling said the violence likely had been developing over time, but the community hadn’t done enough to combat it.He had heard about Raleigh International in the UK, which was primarily aimed at self-funding gap year students who wanted to travel and do some good in the world.The organisation also had a subgroup called ‘Motivate’ which worked with young teenagers in underprivileged areas and rewarded them with a three-month expedition once they completed two years of self-development activities.“So I thought let’s take a look at that and see if we can apply that here [in Bermuda],” he said.“It’s not the sort of programme that most Bermudians would do because it is expensive and if you had that money it would go towards family or education or whatever, but we wanted to try to create this fully-funded programme, where we take young Bermudians who we think would benefit from this and develop a programme around the ‘Motivate’ programme.”In 2005, Raleigh Bermuda took its first 11 young people from CedarBridge Academy and Berkeley Institute to Borneo to complete the expedition and saw “pretty good results”.“It’s like that cliché ‘a life changing experience’, but you could just see the lights had gone off in their eyes when they came back.“Before they went there was a lot of enthusiasm, which you get from a lot of these programmes that you get out there. But it was the confidence that they came back with.“I remember asking a couple of them ‘what was the best part of your expedition?’ expecting for them to say ‘wonderful people, great to see another part of the world etc’. But a couple of them actually said the same thing ‘It was the first time in our life that we actually felt appreciated’ which blew me back. I wasn’t expecting that, but what it did was give them the self esteem that comes from achieving.”He said the programme has taught him that many young people want to do better.“I see a lot of achievers out there already. We tend to focus on the negative. What I see is, we as a community have to act if we are going to redirect young people.“There is a lot to be done and what I see is a great number of people who want to change their lives, but find it difficult because of where they come from, their background and what they have been handed in terms of values, comprehension or the ability to get on with each other.”As an avid traveller, Mr Spurling believes journeying overseas “opens up your mind, your horizons, your tolerance levels [and] your expectations”.Bermuda is a small place, he said, and many people’s horizons don’t reach further than Philadelphia, Boston or New York for the occasional shopping trip.Instead he wanted Raleigh Bermuda to challenge young people to live outside their comfort zones and learn to embrace people from different religions, racial and ethnic groups.For the most part, local youngsters are taking part in projects with young adults from England. Mr Spurling thought this would have resulted in some conflict, but was surprised to learn many had bonded during their time overseas.“[At the airport when the first group said their goodbyes] there were tears, crying they were hugging and exchanging e-mails. It was just such an emotional scene and I thought ‘By God this really works. They became good friends’.”Some of the participants, he says, saw him as a “middle-age, middle-class white man” and couldn’t look him in the eyes before their expeditions. But they were able to see him in a new light, look him in the eyes and shake his hand with confidence upon their return, he said.Mr Spurling explained he was proud of the success of the programme and its succession plan.He said: “When I started I had no idea if it would still be around or if it would work in the Bermuda context. It does. I didn’t know if we would have appeal out there. It does. I didn’t know if we would be able to raise the money but it has been possible.”His goal is that young people who take part will influence others in their community to continue on a positive path.He said he was grateful to see the programme has changed the lives of a “great number” of young people, but sadly not all of them.Useful website: http://www.raleigh.bm.