The Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme (DofE) for young people will strive to be more inclusive in future, heads of the charity pledged as they celebrated its 40th anniversary.

A number of past participants gathered on Friday to reflect on all the scheme has achieved over the years.

More than 1,300 young people from the Island have completed the award in the past ten years, with the last five Rhodes Scholars all having attained the highest Gold Award.

In order to complete the scheme, participants aged 14 to 25 must complete four sections — a service challenge involving community work, an adventurous journey, a skill development section focusing on a hobby or vocational skill and physical recreation. Participants in the Gold Award must also complete a five-day residential project.

The DofE already embraces the public schools Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy, as well as the Co-Ed prison programme. However it has experienced problems in recent times with public school pupils not showing the same level of interest as their private school counterparts. New chairman Kenneth Bartram acknowledged at Friday's gathering: "We know that we are looked upon as an elitist group, and it's said we only operate in private schools."

However, he pointed out that every one of five recent Gold Award winners came from a public school, and pledged to do more to increase awareness so the DofE is no longer "one of Bermuda's biggest secrets".

Meanwhile new executive director Erica Smith, former Director of the Government's Sustainable Development strategy, said she was excited by her new role.

"Since my departure from the Bermuda Government many have questioned me on what they see as a huge career change. From my perspective I don't believe that it was such a huge departure and I'll tell you why. A key principle of Sustainable Development is not only the integration of our economic and environmental considerations, but also our social considerations. In my former role, the public raised the need for us to focus on and address the social aspects of Bermuda — that being the quality of the lives of individual Bermudians, our neighbours, our parents, and most of all, our children. There was and continues to be a strong desire to ensure that the human element of our society is on firm footing and in my opinion where better to start than with the future of our Island — our young people?" She pledged to foster closer ties with Government, and place greater emphasis in future on those who are incarcerated.

"We believe that if we can garner enthusiasm for the programme amongst our young people, especially those who feel marginalised by society, we know that we can improve the quality of life and spirit within the whole community," she explained.

An Alumni and Friends Association has also been launched in a bid to gain further assistance with running the programme. Volunteers are needed in areas ranging from assessing participants to organising fundraisers, and from researching the history of the scheme to videography.

Anyone interested in lending a hand or participating in the DofE scheme should call Mr. Bartram on 537-4868 or email dofe@theaward.bm. Further information is available on the website www.theaward.bm.