Costa Rica Rainforest Outward Bound School

Founder: Dr. Jim Rowe

Founding Year: 1997

In September 1991, Jim Rowe traveled by land from Colorado, where he had been working as an instructor for the Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS), to Costa Rica.

Fascinated with the country, he spent time over the next few years learning about Costa Rica’s indigenous culture, rainforest ecology, and geography. He eventually brought some rafting and SCUBA equipment down to Costa Rica and started a company dedicated to running trips in the Quepos region.

Running day trips helped him build the needed capital and marketing funds to establish a school that would offer courses more consistent with Jim's philosophical approach to instructing. Rather than running quick commercial trips, Jim started leading trips whose objectives were principle-based learning through adventure experiences.

He founded Save the Rainforest Expeditions and School (STRES) to provide an avenue to work with youth applying the same philosophies Jim used while at COBS. STRES was committed to instilling self-reliance, leadership, compassion, and service in a Costa Rican context.

Realizing that STRES’ principles were in line with those of Outward Bound International (OBI), Jim applied for and received a provisional charter that would become permanent after three years of maintaining OBI’s policies and procedures.

In September 1997, Costa Rica Outward Bound officially received a full charter from Outward Bound International.

Outward Bound International

Founder: Dr. Kurt Hahn

Founding Year: 1941

"Outward Bound" was originally a term used to describe the moment a ship left its moorings and committed itself and its crew to the open sea, bound for the unknown with all its hazards and adventures.

It was educator, Dr. Kurt Hahn, who inspired the creation of the first Outward Bound School in Aberdovey, Wales.

Hahn is quoted saying, "There are three evils facing modern youth: the decay of physical fitness, the decay of skill, and the decay of compassion." We believe this is as true now as it was at the end of World War II.

His prime interest was in challenge his pupils in several areas aside from academics including physical performance in athletic events, the exercise of patience in a task of craftsmanship, and cooperation and endurance in an expedition on land or water.

Within a year of being exiled from Germany and resettling in Scotland, Hahn founded the Gordonstoun School, where he employed challenge and outdoor adventure to teach perseverance, skill, teamwork, leadership, and compassionate service. The school became one of Britain’s most distinguished progressive schools and served as a model for similar schools in other countries.

Henry Brereton, who worked with him, outlines the school's ideas, which were later to be translated into Outward Bound practice:

“Action and thought would not be divided into two hostile camps; steps would be taken to build the imagination of the student of decision and the willpower of the dreamer so that wise men of action would have the vision to see the consequences of their decisions; and that no boy should be compelled into opinions; but it was criminal negligence not to impel them into experience.”

At Gordonstoun, Hahn added seamanship to the curriculum because he felt it necessary to introduce youth to danger and adventure, to create a learning environment that would provide what William James called the "moral equivalent of war."

With Gordonstoun established and accepted among British educational elite, Hahn sought to extend his ideas to other educational institutions.

After the start of World War II, in the summer of 1940, the Gordonstoun School was moved to Wales. Here Hahn found a suitable site at Aberdovey, a small harbor where he brought the schooner "Prince Louis" and some small boats that had been used at Gordonstoun. He then contacted Lawrence Holt, the owner of a large shipping firm called the Blue Funnel Line, for financial support.

Holt was concerned about the high casualty rate among younger seamen whose ships were torpedoed in the North Atlantic. Holt felt that those seamen, though highly skilled in other ways, had not been trained in dealing with hazards of the battle of the North Atlantic. When their ships were sunk, they were often unable, or unprepared, to survive the ordeal of living in open boats until they were picked up.

Hahn was backed by Holt to impart his learning philosophies and designed a 21-day survival program, which would instill spiritual tenacity and the will to survive to the young seamen. That program evolved into Outward Bound, now a respected educational program with schools in over 30 countries on six continents.