Mentoring London’s young adults

Sustainability Report 2012

Heart of the City, was launched in 2000 as a joint initiative to mobilise the City’s resources towards its neighbouring and less privileged communities, and has brought together a consortium of corporate and not-for-profit partners in London to develop a structured programme of activities that will encourage and facilitate employability education in schools.

Youth unemployment (16 to 24 year olds) is currently at an all-time high at one in four in inner cities. The aim is for businesses to challenge schools to focus on workplace skills for their students, alongside academic achievement.

We have engaged with this programme and will get more involved in 2013. The impetus came from Ben Rose, one of our Senior Engineers, who has been a mentor this academic year on the JUMP mentoring program with British ORT. This program involved working one-on-one with a pupil. Ben’s student is looking at a career in engineering and as such, he has helped the student understand what it takes to become an engineer, how to get a place at university as well as how to find relevant work experience. Ben also supported his student through a CV building and writing workshop. As part of the programme, the student visited Atelier Ten and attended an engineering workshop.

Using this experience Ben wanted to expand our engagement in similar activities and is now working with Heart of the City to find a partnership school for us in the next academic year so that everyone in Atelier Ten has the opportunity to pass on useful knowledge and skills to the next cohort of teenagers moving forward into adulthood and the job market.

Through this scheme, Ben and others from the office will be able to go into the school and give sessions on important skills such as team working, time management and budgeting, as well as pass on firsthand knowledge of job applications and higher education.

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