About Erik’s Gap Year Trust

With the tragic death of Erik Sutherland in June 1998 whilst in the final stages of his gap year, and knowing what enormous benefit he gained from that year out, both in terms of personal development and the acquisition of worthwhile skills and experience while the same time having the ability to travel the world, we felt that we might be able to assist other teenagers in their gap year. It is for most a once in a lifetime experience. School leavers need to be able to access funds which will bridge the gap between the costs of entering into worthwhile gap year activities and the resources they have at their disposal.

We have therefore decided to create a charitable trust to help one or more school leavers every year with this shortfall in funding, the trust being called “The Eric Sutherland Gap Year Trust”. We hope to be able to help with partial funding for a few youngsters and in exceptional cases possibly bear the whole cost of a year out.

In Eric’s Gap Year he firstly worked for one and half months to scrape together some of the initial costs. He then crewed on the yacht “Corryvrecken” sailing from Oban to Antigua, travelled up through America ending up in Canada where he trained to be a snowboard instructor at the “Laurentian Ski School” at Mont Treblant near Quebec. The total cost of a year like this can cost up to £5,000 excluded things like beer money, essential clothing and telephoning home. We have given these as an example of the things which can be done with this sort of budget. It must be pointed out that Eric then went to Majorca where he would have been for the remainder of his Gap Year. This was hard work, unfinanced but still rewarding.