Emily Bowie

Business: Emily Bowie

Email: emily.bowie@hotmail.co.uk

I live in Inverness, and I work in various roles, which aim to connect local people with the outdoors for their mental and physical being.

What is your interest or experience of adventure for mental health or wellbeing? I work for Velocity Cafe & Bicycle Workshop as a Project Coordinator for a cycling for wellbeing project. This project gets people from the local community cycling to promote physical and mental well-being. Many of our participants live with long-term mental and physical health conditions and feel socially isolated. I create partnerships with organisations (e.g. local psychiatric units, GPs) to get people referred to our fully funded programme. I also work as a mountain leader for Mhor Outdoor on their Connect Outdoors programme, a hiking project aimed at equipping under-represented communities with the skills and knowledge to safely hike and adventure in the mountains. I work with an Inverness charity, Aban, which gets local kids into the mountains. I work as a counsellor with young people at a local high school, often leading sessions outdoors and teaching young people about the benefits of the outdoors for wellbeing. As you can tell, I am incredibly passionate about connecting people with nature, whether for their wellbeing, self-confidence or sustainability. I have personally gained so much mentally from time spent outdoors through rock climbing, hill running, and surfing. I am driven to enable others to experience the power of the outdoors in transforming their outlooks on themselves and society.

How can you help us spread the word about AdventureMind’s mission?

I would be delighted to write more articles and social media posts sharing the mission of AdventureMind. I am particularly excited by the sharing of new research and sharing my views on this to help share the word, especially in the Scottish highlands. I have a good following through Instagram and LinkedIn of people who work in the more general outdoor community in Scotland and I think that it is important to share research in this community which challenges typical views that the outdoors has to be for those who are stereotypically male, white, strong, brave etc. The outdoors is a place for everyone and should be accessible for all!