Earlier this year, the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP) earmarked £1 million of funding over the next three years to deliver this ground-breaking Prize Challenge Fund scheme, with the first £240,000 being announced this week.
The eight organisations selected to receive the LEP Prize Challenge award are:
- Axiom Crossroads Care – Plan into Employment programme
- CHS Group – Enterprise Communities project
- Cross Keys Homes – Moving forward into work
- Future Business – No NEET school leaver
- Groundwork – Grassroots
- Living Sport – Sport Future
- Prince’s Trust – Get into machining
- Wintercomfort for the homeless – Overstream clean
The winners will receive £30,000 each to improve and develop the skills of people who are experiencing multiple challenges and struggling to access sustained employment. The most successful projects then have the chance to compete for a further £50,000 of funding to help develop their projects further.
Grahame Nix, Chief Executive of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough LEP, explains: “Here at the LEP, we understand the importance to our region of having a skilled workforce and also the importance of having a job. The Prize Challenge Fund is providing £30,000 of funding for our eight finalists to make a real difference to people within their local communities. We received a wide range of project ideas, with the winners ranging from a programme to train young people to become CNC machinists within a successful local company through to the creation of a cleaning social enterprise in Cambridge to help people who are at risk of, or were formerly, homeless.
“In total, we aim to help 1,000 disadvantaged people to become job ready and 250 people into paid employment within our area through the Prize Challenge. By fostering innovation we are creating new approaches for the future that will help people find work and support growth in our area.”
All of the award winners filmed a video submission as a part of the application process to summarise their project concept. You can watch the videos online here: http://www.yourlocalenterprisepartnership.co.uk/lep-prize-challenge-videos/
Project details
Axiom Crossroads Care – Plan into Employment programme
Location: Peterborough and Cambridgeshire
Targeted at carers or former carers, the Plan into Employment programme will provide a comprehensive training and development package to help people into work within the health and social care sector.
Dr Helen Brown, Chief Executive of Carers Trust Cambridgeshire, said: “For Axiom Crossroads Care as a young organisation determined to improve lives locally, an endorsement and opportunity of this kind is hugely important to us, our partners, Axiom Housing and Carers Trust Cambridgeshire, and the homeless people and family carers it will help into employment.”
CHS Group – Enterprise Communities project
Location: Cambridgeshire
Building on their already successful community based trading platform, CHS Group will help to unlock communities’ assets and improving connections between people, businesses and charities, and as a result enabling disadvantaged people to secure jobs, create their own micro-businesses and practise their skills.
Andrew Church, from CHS Group, said: “CHS Group is all about people. Over 7,000 people live in our affordable homes, but our work is about much more than that. The LEP Prize Challenge will enable us to support people to get on in life by developing their skills, widening their networks, securing jobs, and testing out their ideas to set up their own business.”
Cross Keys Homes – Moving forward into work
Location: Peterborough
Supporting young people aged 16 to 24 (who are often the most removed from employment) into work through a six month paid placement within Tackling Worklessness in Peterborough (TWIP) organisations, with additional job searching and personal support.
Cross Keys Homes’ Director of Operations, Claire Higgins, said: “We are really delighted to have secured this funding, which will go a long way to helping many young unemployed people in Peterborough secure six months’ paid pre-apprenticeship work placements and job skills training.
“Our Moving 4ward programme encourages young people to develop themselves and think about what they want to do as a career, as well as offering further training, education or employment, post their initial six-months’ work placements.“This funding will make such a difference and enable us to bring on board the city’s Tacking Worklessness in Peterborough project group, providing many more private and public sector placements across the city as well as helping to get more young people into work.”
Future Business – No NEET school leaver
Location: Ely, North Cambridgeshire and another location TBC
Introducing school based work clubs into the wider GCGP area, with a proven track record elsewhere at getting over 90% of pre-NEET school leavers into work or ongoing education and training.
Martin Clark, Deputy CEO, Future Business, said “Future Business is excited to be awarded Prize Challenge funding for our ‘No NEET School Leaver’ project. Working with our partner Keystone Development Trust and 3 schools in the LEP area, we hope we can demonstrate that if we all pull together there really should be no school leaver who is left to become NEET. This will be a big challenge but with Keystone’s proven school work club model, backed up by businesses and social enterprises, we hope to make a valuable contribution to getting young people job ready and engaged with the world of work.”
Groundwork – Grassroots
Location: Huntingdon
Creating a pathway to new employment opportunities at Alconbury Weald from the area of greatest deprivation in Huntingdonshire through gaining skills and confident by working on projects to improve parks and community spaces.
Chris Dungate from Groundwork said: “Groundwork is thrilled to have been awarded the Prize Challenge grant. We are very excited to have the opportunity to continue to build upon our successful projects that benefit the local community and those distanced from the labour market to gain new skills and progress into employment or training.”
Living Sport – Sport Future
Location: Across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Delivering a programme of training and support that will provide disadvantaged young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to become employment ready and to get into work.
Simon Fairhall from Living Sport said: “This funding from the LEP Prize Challenge provides a fantastic opportunity for Living Sport to develop a new project with some new partners with the ultimate target of sports employment opportunities for young people who are not currently in employment, education or training but which also, as part of the training stage, enables us to provide support to a range of community sports projects and events”
“We are really looking forward to getting started and already have ideas for how we can expand the project to engage more young people and across a wider cultural and youth work agenda”
Prince’s Trust – Get into Machining
Location: Fenland
Working with local company, Metalcraft, the Prince’s Trust will run their Get into Machining programme to allow young people to gain a competency certificate in CNC machining to help them become better equipped to enter the field of engineering.
Lauren Keeler from the Prince’s Trust said: “The Prince’s Trust are thrilled to have been awarded one of the LEP Prizes. With the financial support of the LEP, we will be able to bring together a consortium of private sector employers and delivery partners in Chatteris to offer young people the opportunity to work in engineering.”
Wintercomfort for the homeless – Overstream clean
Location: Cambridge
Creating an efficient and high quality cleaning social enterprise in Cambridge to provide training and employment to people with experience of, or at risk of, homelessness.
Rachel Newell, Social Enterprise Manager, Wintercomfort for the homeless, said: “We are very excited about the Prize Challenge Award as this means we can now launch our brand new social enterprise, providing an efficient, quality cleaning service for businesses and organisations within Cambridge. We will work in partnership with local businesses, housing associations and the council, providing skills training to people with experience of or at risk of homelessness. It will be an exemplary model of getting those people that are furthest away from employment, back into work.”
The Prize Challenge Fund has been managed by Cambridgeshire Community Foundation, with the capacity-building and facilitation support of Big Society Funding CIC. Evaluation partners are Social Enterprise East of England.
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