National Inter Academy Team Supports JustWorld
Initiative is one of the core values of the JustWorld family. Corinne Bracken, Chef d'equipe of the British juniors and young riders for nine years, realized an opportunity and took the initiative by founding the National Inter Academy Team Event in 2005. This event was created to give a progressive structure to training all over the country. So instead of the British show jumping juniors simply turning up for a lesson, they were encouraged to create a training plan, a show plan and to keep a portfolio on their training. Corinne shared, "I wanted to create something that brought the riders together as a team earlier in their riding years. I wanted something that still had the team bonding aspect, but was not as high pressured as jumping for your country."
The event started as a small pilot in 2008 with three local academies putting together teams and jumps in an indoor academy team show. It ran four classes and had about three teams in each class. Fast forward to August 2010 and together with her academy coordinator, Carl Benson, the event took on its current form, starting outdoors. Since then the event has developed and grown to fifteens teams in each class, with ten teams traveling from Scotland this year. There are both individual and team competitions and the victors are given rugs, trophies, and medals by the organization.Corinne became familiar with JustWorld International back in 2007 after the Justworld booth caught her eye at the Wellington show ground in Florida. She discovered the efforts among JustWorld and its partner projects to help children around the world and was also fascinated to see the work being done among the showjumping population. After reacquainting herself with JustWorld at the Deauville show the last two years and seeing the organization develop, not only in the States but also in Europe, it was through her influence that the National Inter Academy chose JustWorld as the charity to support for this year’s event.
With Corinne's generosity and enterprising spirit, she raised enough to support approximately 600 meals for the children at JustWorld's partner projects. Corinne shared, "It would be great for riders in other countries to run something like this and I would be happy to serve as a model."