Local employers broadening horizons for young people

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Staff from BBC, Coca-Cola, clubs, shops and arts centres involved in volunteering

Local employers – ranging from the BBC and Coca-Cola to football clubs, shops, hairdressers, childcare centres, arts and voluntary organisations – are giving young people in the borough an insight into the world of work as well as broadening their experience and horizons.

And the thriving mentoring, work experience and volunteering schemes are proving as rewarding for staff at local companies and organisations as for the young people from local schools who take part or benefit. Employers are also getting the chance to identify potential employees.

Their stories were among the positive experiences shared with delegates from more than 100 businesses and other organisations at the Education Business Links Conference, organised by the council’s education business section and hosted by the BBC, in White City, on Wednesday last week (2 March).

Among the successful projects running in Hammersmith & Fulham are:
· The Valued Youth mentoring programme – a business mentoring scheme run jointly by Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s education business section and Coca-Cola GB in Hammersmith. The scheme links secondary school students with Coca-Cola staff, who act as mentors, while the students in turn act as peer tutors to local primary school children.
· The BBC Take Two mentoring programme, which involves BBC staff in White City acting as mentors to local sixth form students, who in turn act as peer tutors to pupils in local secondary and primary schools. Also run jointly with the council’s education business section.
· BBC staff also act as volunteer readers in local primary schools, giving up an hour every other week to read to local children.
· The Upper Room charity, which runs a breakfast club and early morning activities, including sport and music, for children from five local primary schools. The centre takes 40 secondary school pupils on work placements per year, giving them experience in food hygiene, health and safety and child protection and the chance to gain entry-level qualifications for childcare work.
· Young people interested in working with animals are taking part in a successful placement scheme at Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre.

Henry Compton School pupil Amer Salha, 14, who has taken part in the Valued Youth programme, described his Coca-Cola mentor Stuart King as “an adult friend who can help me with all the experiences I will be going through at school and university”. Amer said: “Stuart helps me understand the benefits of being in a big company like Coca-Cola and what it is like to be a grown-up. He has opened doors for me.” Amer in turn acts as a peer tutor to children at Langford Primary School. More…

Meanwhile Stuart, a graphic services manager for Coca-Cola’s Middle East and North African products, has had his eyes opened to the diversity on his own doorstep.
He said: “I visited Henry Compton School, where there are 42 languages spoken, and young people from so many different backgrounds and places – it is a totally amazing place and it bodes well for the future of our country.”
Stuart is studying Arabic at evening class and finds Amer’s knowledge of the language comes in handy with his homework!

 

Cllr David Williams, the council’s deputy for education, said: “We have many successful partnerships which are giving young people a wide range of work-related experiences. But we are always looking for more employers to join us in helping to provide education, training and employment opportunities so that young people are able to better equip themselves for the demands of the modern world and the choices they will have to make at 16.”

 

March 13, 2005