Two Scottish athletes helped to kick-start the innovative scheme that will see over 1,000 pupils and students the length and breadth of Scotland gear up to be part of the ground-breaking Lead 2014 youth leadership and volunteering campaign ahead of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The programme, launched at the University of Stirling – Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence, will inspire hundreds of secondary school pupils and university students to use sport as the springboard to hone and develop their leadership skills. It will also provide an opportunity for children across Scotland to engage with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Lead 2014 – a partnership between sportscotland, Youth Sport Trust and Glasgow 2014, – will see pupils from 137 Scottish secondary schools gather during February and March at one of seven day-long conferences hosted by the Lead 2014 partner university in their area.

The pupils will be mentored by university student volunteers in how to plan, organise and manage a Commonwealth Games themed sports festival. The pupils then take their new skills and knowledge back to their communities to organise a sports festival for their local primary schools.

Using Glasgow 2014 as the catalyst, Lead 2014 will capture young people’s energy and enthusiasm for sport and enable them to become leadership ambassadors among their peers. It will also help to motivate them to play a significant part in the huge volunteering effort around the Commonwealth Games

Today’s launch saw two of Scotland’s young aspiring athletes lead the way by inspiring young people to rise to the leadership challenge. Triathlete Grant Sheldon and swimmer Cameron Brodie – who are aiming to be part of Team Scotland at Glasgow 2014 – staged a sports festival for a group of Stirling school pupils and university students to illustrate the end product of the Lead 2014 campaign.

This is the second year of the campaign and will be a key element in the build-up to Glasgow 2014. In 2011, 900 pupils from 94 secondary schools attended the six university conferences across the country. This year’s programme has been extended to seven universities and has attracted interest from over 1,000 pupils all over Scotland.