YACHTWORLD Exclusive - For His Services to Charity

    ST. TROPEZ, FRANCE, February 20, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Awarded in recognition of Alex's outstanding work through his charity, ENCOMPASS, in helping bring together young people from varied and conflicting cultures and faiths through demanding physical programmes and facilitated, sometimes confrontational, discussions.

ENCOMPASS was founded in 2003 following the death of Alex's son, Daniel, in the Bali Bombing in 2002 which killed 202 people.

Alex Braden is the co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of Yachting Partners International (YPI), one of the world's leading yacht management and brokerage houses, this year celebrating its 40th Anniversary. An early member and President of MYBA, the industry's regulatory body, Alex is a man with some considerable influence in his field and no stranger to the art of finding the common ground between conflicting parties.

In 2002, Alex lost his son, Daniel, in a terrorist attack on a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. Daniel was a Chinese speaker and working in Taiwan. He was in Bali for an amateur rugby tournament when he and five of his team from Taiwan were killed while celebrating the day's play.

Alex and his family decided to dedicate themselves to finding a way of preventing similar tragedies from happening again.

"We realized that one of the most positive ways we could help was to bring together youth of different cultures and opposing faiths and politics," explains Alex. "We wanted to find a way of opening their minds so they could start to understand and give value to 'the other side' - to give 'the other side' a human face and start confronting the stereotypes."

In 2003, ENCOMPASS - The Daniel Braden Reconciliation Trust, was set up. The first flagship projects were called "Voyages of Understanding" and took place on Tall Ships. In 2005, the various limitations of the Tall Ships made it necessary to move from sea to land and the now very successful Outward Bound Camps, or the "Journeys of Understanding" programs as they were renamed, were formed.

"Since its inception, ENCOMPASS has brought together over 1,000 young people from different cultures," Alex explains. "It has developed its expertise in allowing Israelis, Palestinians, Indonesians, Americans and very ethnically eclectic British participants to meet together not only to discuss their differences but their similar needs. ENCOMPASS supports them to become more understanding and tolerant of each other whilst also giving them the skills and confidence to promote inter-cultural understanding in their own communities. Each one of their alumni is now an ambassador for this understanding, helping us reach out to a much greater number of people, young and old, beyond the immediate Journeys programs."

Concerning his Award, Alex is predictably low-key.

"This whole 'hero' thing is totally over-the-top and a bit embarrassing," he says, "but I am very grateful to the YachtWorld Foundation and their YachtWorld Hero program, for helping bring more attention to ENCOMPASS and the work that we do. The more people know about our work and our goals the more I think we can make a difference - that is important to me, my family and everyone we work with."

Encompass: The Daniel Braden Reconciliation Trust, is registered in the UK, USA and Indonesia as an international youth development and peace-building charity working to bring together young people from different cultures and backgrounds, supporting them to become more understanding and tolerant of each other while giving them the skills and confidence to promote intercultural understanding in their communities.

Encompass works with partner organisations in the UK, US, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Indonesia to reach out to young people from a variety of backgrounds to develop opportunities for young people who have been involved with Encompass projects to use their experiences to benefit others while contributing to a sustainable and lasting peace.

For more information or to make a donation please either call on +44 (0)207 430 0247, email [email protected] or visit the charities website at www.encompasstrust.org.

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