The founder who built a charity to help young people swap the streets for the slopes

More than 23,000 young people have passed through Snow Camp’s programmes since the charity was founded in 2003, gaining confidence, qualifications and career opportunities through skiing and snowboarding. Yet what many people do not realise is that the idea behind the UK’s only national youth snowsports charity began not on a mountain, but inside a youth club in south London, and it all started with an X-Box game.

A group of teenagers had been playing a skiing game and began talking about the sport itself. For them, skiing was something that belonged to other people, other places and other lives. The game, they believed, was the closest they would ever come to experiencing it for real.

For Dan Charlish, the youth worker at the time that was listening to that conversation, it was a light bulb moment.

Today, more than two decades later, Snow Camp works across London, the Midlands, the North West and Scotland, helping young people develop confidence, resilience and skills through snowsports.

A desire to make a difference

Long before Snow Camp existed, Dan knew he wanted to work in the charity sector. His career began at Christian Aid, where he spent seven years supporting projects in Africa and India and learning how communities can create lasting change when people are given the tools and support to succeed.

While the work was rewarding, he felt drawn towards issues closer to home. “I wanted to work directly within local communities and see that impact firsthand,” he says.

That desire led him to south London, where he established the St John’s Community Project in Stockwell, creating programmes for young people, families and older residents across several local estates. The experience taught him an important lesson about community itself. Real change rarely happens through programmes alone. It happens through relationships, trust and creating environments where people feel they belong.

Working with young people every day also gave him an insight into the barriers many faced. Some lacked confidence, others had limited opportunities. Many had simply never been exposed to experiences that might broaden their horizons or change the way they saw themselves. It was inside that youth centre at St John’s that Snow Camp began to take shape.

An unlikely idea

Snowsports and youth work are not obvious partners. Skiing and snowboarding are often viewed as expensive, inaccessible activities that sit far removed from inner-city communities. Yet Dan saw something different.

The conversation about the X-Box game revealed more than an interest in skiing. It highlighted how many young people had already decided which opportunities were available to them and which were not.

If they could experience success in something entirely unfamiliar, perhaps they might begin to see themselves differently too.

What began as a small fundraising project to take a group of young people skiing quickly became something much bigger. The first group of 12 young people from Stockwell set off for Les 2 Alpes in the French Alps in 2003 – ready to test the idea.

“When we came back, it was obvious that something had changed,” he says. The mountain created a level playing field. Nobody arrived with an advantage, everyone fell over and struggled, and ultimately, everyone learned. Progress depended on resilience, perseverance, communication and trust.

“On a mountain, or at an indoor snow centre where most of our programmes now take place in the UK, everybody starts from the same place.” That simple idea would become one of the foundations of Snow Camp.

Building confidence through challenge

What started as a local initiative gradually developed into a structured programme that combines snowsports with youth development, mental health support, qualifications and vocational opportunities.

Today, young people progress through programmes that build confidence, life skills and employability. Many eventually move into apprenticeships, employment within the snowsports industry or mentoring roles, helping the next generation of participants to take part. For Dan, these moments are often the most rewarding.

Seeing a young person stand at the top of a slope for the first time, complete a qualification they never thought possible or return years later to support others represents something far bigger than learning to ski.

“It is often about helping somebody realise they are capable of more than they believed.”

Many young people arrive with anxiety, low confidence or difficult circumstances at home. Others have simply never been given access to opportunities that many people take for granted. Snow Camp offers something different.

It asks young people to commit, participate, work as a team and take responsibility, while also providing support and encouragement along the way. That combination of challenge and belief has helped thousands of young people develop confidence that extends far beyond the slopes.

The changing reality for young people

Over the past two decades, Dan has also witnessed significant changes in the pressures facing young people.

Mental health challenges, social isolation and uncertainty about the future have become even more rife after the pandemic. Many youth services have faced funding cuts while demand for support has continued to rise, leaving young people dealing with disruption, anxiety and reduced opportunities for social connection.

Dan believes one of the reasons Snow Camp continues to work is because it focuses on potential rather than problems. “We have always tried to avoid underestimating young people.”

The programme expects commitment, accountability and effort, while also creating an environment where young people feel supported to do just that. The results often surprise the participants themselves.

For some, success means completing a qualification. For others, it means securing employment or returning as a mentor. Sometimes it is simply discovering they can do something they once thought impossible.

The challenge of building a charity

Running a national charity also brings challenges that are often invisible from the outside. Like many organisations working with young people, Snow Camp has faced growing demand alongside increasing pressure on funding. Each year requires a renewed effort to secure the resources needed to continue delivering programmes.

The more impact a charity creates, the greater the responsibility to sustain it. For Dan, that reality has become one of the defining lessons of leadership. Growth creates opportunity, but it also creates responsibility.

The organisation has continued to expand, focusing on long-term sustainability rather than rapid growth. Partnerships with businesses, trusts and supporters have played a crucial role in allowing the charity to develop while remaining focused on its mission.

Those partnerships provide more than financial support. They create relationships, mentoring opportunities and connections between young people and the world of work. Many supporters become long-term advocates because they can see the impact firsthand.

Looking ahead

Snow Camp now supports more than 1,100 young people each year and continues to develop programmes across the UK using indoor snow centres that create pathways into employment, apprenticeships and leadership opportunities.

Enabling young people to experience the mountains for the first time is still a central goal for the charity, but is now positioned at the end of Snow Camp’s yearlong UK journey, linked with a BASI ski qualification. The long-term vision of course extends beyond introducing young people to snowsports, it is about creating opportunities that change lives.

Dan remains optimistic about the future, despite the challenges facing the youth sector. For him, the most meaningful moments have not changed. They are found in the young person who achieves something they once thought they could not. Those moments continue to reinforce why Snow Camp exists.

In a world where many young people feel overlooked or underestimated, the charity offers something remarkably simple: the belief that their future does not have to look like their past.

Perhaps that is the biggest lesson Dan has learned over the past twenty years. The mountain itself is not what changes lives. Sometimes it is simply giving someone the chance to believe they belong there.

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