Case Studies

County: London Borough of Hackney

Funding Theme: Enterprise training for socially excluded young adults

Amount secured: £5000

About the project

The project provided enterprise training to socially excluded young adults (18-25 years old), in the London Borough of Hackney, who had barriers to education, employment, or training and came from impoverished backgrounds. The pandemic made things worse for these young people with the crisis resulting in social isolation, job loss, and education disruption.

During the 12-week Accredited OCN programme, students learned valuable skill sets such as goal setting, confidence building, and presentation skills using technology. They also learned business skills such as cost analysis, proposal writing, applying for funding, marketing/advertising, and leadership. From this cohort, eight students graduated, and prizes were awarded following a Dragon's Den event. These skill sets and training methods helped these young adults apply the learnings in a practical business application.

Mission

To support vulnerable young adults from poor backgrounds who were affected by job loss, isolation, and education disruption following the pandemic.  Through the enterprise course, the charity anticipates these young students will be able to set up their own businesses and apply for various employment opportunities. The project aims to help these young individuals develop new skills and bring their business ideas to life without discrimination or prejudice. This would further improve their socioeconomic status within their community and provide them with appropriate mentoring for their journey to success.

Impact

The project had a great impact and brought some good success stories such as one of the graduates of the New Tech Enterprise, who is now working for the charity as their Brand and Marketing manager. This was such a great achievement after being long-term unemployed and falling into depression. After the success of this 12-week programme, Urban MBA has established a one-year programme, to delve deeper into business start-ups.

Moving forward

Today with the support of the Hackney Council Urban MBA has grown and supported more than 500 students and is continuing to receive record numbers of requests. Says Kofi Oppong, Founder & CEO of Urban MBA, “The fund has helped us to run the courses at a really challenging time of Covid when accessing further education was very difficult.” 

About LHC Community Benefit Fund

In each region, LHC members have the opportunity to create and distribute a Community Benefit Fund generated from the rebate they receive if they spend over a specified threshold on LHC frameworks. Further, an independent community benefit agency is also appointed to work with the members to find a local charity partner. For London and the Southeast, LHC works closely with the specialist community support network ‘Locality’. Now in its fourth year, the fund has invested in excess of £325,000 in 51 community projects, targeting a diverse range of needs.

For more information on Locality and their work, visit: www.locality.org.uk