Groundwork youth enterprise project

Our next entry for the St Luke’s CARES Community Awards has been submitted by Groundwork, the environmental charity. For details of how your community group can enter please click here.

Groundwork is an alternative curriculum provider, based in Morley, South Leeds. We are running a free exciting new project for young people aged 15 – 18 who have either left school and are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) or currently in school and at risk of becoming NEET.

Young people can learn new practical skills in either arts and crafts or gardening and horticulture leading to a level 1 NOCN accredited qualification. In addition to the fun, practical activities, the young people will improve their maths, English and ICT skills, gaining a nationally recognised Functional Skills qualification in each subject at their own  identified level (from entry level 1 through to level 2). We offer useful and valuable life skills as part of the programme, including money management, healthy eating, staying safe online, alcohol and drugs awareness to name a few. To enable the young people to move on to further study, an apprenticeship or into employment, we offer tailored employability skills together with a meaningful and beneficial work placement.

For those young people furthest from employment, Groundwork has a number of departments, including Green Doctor, Communities and Marketing, where they can undertake work experience to improve confidence, before moving to an external placement. By them working internally, we can more closely monitor them, ensuring they are settled, happy and getting a unique and personalised experience.

Being prepared for work can be a daunting prospect and Groundwork ensure all our young people are equipped with the skills they need to succeed. These include ensuring everyone has an appropriate CV, has interview practice with both internal and external parties, understands how to appropriately complete and upload an application form to give them the best chance of success.

If Groundwork were fortunate enough to be awarded funds to enhance the experience of young people, we would empower them with the opportunity to develop an enterprise project. This would entail the young people working together to decide upon a specific project, planning and costing (hence the need for start-up funds) and final implementation.

At the end of the project – which would potentially last around 2 months – the young people would have to democratically decide on how to spend any profits from the project. This could be re-investing to a further project or deciding to re-invest some of the money and use some to perhaps go on a fun trip or outing.

By undertaking the enterprise project, the young people would enhance their teamwork and communication skills, understand the need to work hard and appreciate the value of hard earned money. Thus, all helping prepare them for independence and the world of work.

 

This post was written by Paula Hinsley using our Create an article for South Leeds Life page.