Connect Outdoors 2026 partners announced

Five more organisations line up to provide outdoor opportunities to communities who have little or no access to the outdoors in Scotland via our inclusive educational programme - Connect Outdoors.

We launched Connect Outdoors in 2023 in partnership with Tiso and Mhor Outdoor, with the goal of introducing people from under-represented communities to nature and wild places through sustainable, educational and empowering outdoor activity.

Each Connect Outdoors session partners with a different community organisation whose beneficiaries face barriers to accessing the outdoors, taking them on weekly hill walks over a period of eight weeks.

Our Connect Outdoors partners in 2026 are: Edinburgh Recovery Activities; Stoneyburn and Bents Future Vision group; Coldingham Brave Bayers; Sam’s Saunters in Inverness; and Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality Council.

Sam of Sam’s Saunters is a Connect Outdoors alumni who participated in 2024 and then joined the Connect Outdoors Leadership Programme in 2025. With support from the programme, including his mentor, a Trust volunteer, he has set up his own walking group for LGBTQIA+ peers who have applied successfully to the programme.

• Find out more about Connect Outdoors.