Chicago Adventure Therapy

Chicago Adventure Therapy offers outdoor adventure sports such as climbing, kayaking, and camping, along with other outdoor adventure experiences and outdoor education. Participants take part in hands-on experiences that build outdoor adventure skills through activities like nature reflections and other skill-building activities. The program also brings outdoor experiences to community settings such as parks, block parties, and other community events.

• Ages: 0–18 years old
• Price: Family Adventures are offered at absolutely no cost.

Since 2006, Chicago Adventure Therapy (CAT) has woven outdoor adventure into the fabric of collective wellness and reclamation in Chicago’s most under-served communities. Chicago Adventure Therapy is a Chicago-based nonprofit making the outdoors accessible to communities who have been historically excluded from natural spaces—especially Black, brown, LGBTQ+, and low-income young people. Its mission is to use outdoor adventure sports to help Chicago children, youth, young adults, and families build leadership and social skills, foster empowerment, and create lasting positive change in their communities.

Chicago Adventure Therapy collaborates with youth-serving organizations to offer outdoor adventure experiences for their clients, often through partnerships with other nonprofit agencies. The program brings together youth from various backgrounds across the city of Chicago to build community and brings the adventure to parks, block parties, and other community events, where the team provides gear for hands-on experiences and answers questions. Family Adventures are offered at absolutely no cost, and the Adventure Communities program was created to ensure that youth participants maintain access to outdoor adventure experiences regardless of involvement status with partner organizations.

Chicago Adventure Therapy centers culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices and leverages outdoor adventure as a tool for healing, leadership development, and mental health wellness. In 2019, the organization integrated a trauma-informed, community-embedded approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) into its programming. It has evolved from a clinically driven adventure therapy model into a community-led movement centering healing, belonging, and mental wellness for Black, brown, and other marginalized youth throughout Chicago. The organization values and promotes diversity and inclusion regardless of race, ethnicity, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification or expression, body type, ability, income, religion, philosophy, and other identities.

The Executive Director is Zorbari Nwidor. As Zorbari Nwidor describes it, “This journey we’re on—like any outdoor adventure—is both thrilling and a little scary. You pack your bag, you prepare as best you can, but then there’s always something unexpected—like rain or a surprise obstacle. That’s what makes it thrilling and also what makes it meaningful. CAT’s role is to help young people navigate the scary parts, to teach them that discomfort can lead to growth, and to show them that they have the power to transform their lives and their communities.”

Last updated July 29, 2026.