The UNESCO director showed me the pile of workshop resolutions and research reports on engaging youth in intercultural dialogue. It nearly reached the ceiling. So much rhetoric, so little action at the grassroots level, he concluded. It was hard to disagree.

Prior to taking up the role of director of Outward Bound Oman in 2009, I had worked as a teacher in the Middle East for 14 years. Forced to return to UK briefly in the late 1990s due to a family illness, I was struck by the universally negative attitude of the media to a part of the world that I considered home, and a very safe, friendly, and welcoming home at that. A meeting with HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, then Saudi Arabia's ambassador in London, resulted in funding to do something to reduce the polarization of cultures, and promote a greater understanding. But what to do?

Queen Rania of Jordan, who strongly promotes intercultural dialogue, has made the point that there is a difference between information and knowledge. The Internet provides us with information, but sometimes we do not know where that information has its roots. It is a useful tool, but one that needs to be treated with caution. Genuine knowledge is gained through firsthand experience, through experiential learning.

I was lucky that year to hear an inspiring individual lecture at South Africa House in London. In these days of fancy Power-Point presentations and video clips, this man simply walked up on stage, hung his walking stick on the lectern, and spoke for over an hour. (…) He spoke with such passion that the audience strained to hear every word, and crowded round at the end to show their appreciation. Dr. Ian Player (…) told a story of the Wilderness Leadership School that he and a Zulu companion had set up, using the wilds of the Umfolozi Game Reserve to take groups of black and white youth into the bush for five days in an effort to break down the divide of apartheid. It proved a great success, and the inspiration for Connecting Cultures.

(…) The idea was to make the first trip a high-profile one in the media in the hope that it would attract further funding. So, in 2004, six boys from Saudi Arabia joined six boys from the UK and we flew to the most northerly commercial airport in the world, on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, where we lived for two weeks in the wilderness, with dogs to warn us of curious polar bears and with no contact with the outside world other than our Iridium satellite phone. Around driftwood fires we discussed numerous contentious issues. BBC News Online ensured that news of our journey reached a global audience, and our stay was brought to a premature end when Prince Turki commissioned a private jet from Munich to collect us and deliver us to Manchester, where we spoke in front of 15,000 people at a gathering called Arabian Days.

(…) Courses do not need to be of an international/UNESCO nature, but can be of equal, if not greater, value working with communities within countries. Increased government funding is being set aside to address the issue of 'community cohesion' in many countries with multicultural populations where Outward Bound currently operates (…).

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