Cheers for 7 Years!
In 2014, Diane Vernon took a risk. A risk many said would not pay off. She started a charity with the purpose of helping young people gain employment skills and experience. 7 years on, and the outcome of this risk has resulted in more opportunities for young people to excel in personal and professional development.
December 2021 marks the 7-year anniversary of EmployabilityUK. Over the past several years, we have provided for a community of young people who were desperately in need of employability skills and support. Our pilot programme with Coventry Building Society in 2015 benefitted over 1000 young people across 6 schools. This cemented EUK’s mission to facilitate employer engagement, but this was only the beginning.
EmployabilityUK has continued to provide employability programmes and workshops with young people at the centre of their messages. This was expertly displayed throughout the Covid 19 pandemic. Young people and youth employment was suffering and in desperate need of support. Adjustments were made to ensure there was accessibility for young people through hybrid workshops. This has been a testament to the charity’s core ideals of creating reliable development in employment skills for young people.
In the same vein, EUK has also spent countless hours ensuring it covers different communities of young people who are often in the most need of employability support, such as care leavers or NEETs for example. This has been through the Inspiring Light programme and the Kickstart scheme to name a couple. Disadvantaged young people often have a large number of pressures surrounding employability development and EUK continues to create opportunities to overcome this. It is our belief that both young people and businesses need to work together to increase engagement and opportunities in employment.
While we do not do any of this for gratitude or a reward it was an absolute honour to receive the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2020/21. This was an amazing experience and helped the charity gain more public interest. It was a great summary of not only our hard work but particularly the contributions of our volunteers. They have been irreplaceable, and we would not have the current successes we have without them.
We have moved from strength to strength in creating opportunities for young people, liaising with businesses, and facilitating employer engagement. We are incredibly proud of ourselves and our achievements, but this is not to say we have completed our mission. We have some exciting new opportunities and events coming up for young people and potential business partners. The 2022 Commonwealth games will be bringing some amazing opportunities through our Inspiring Young Birmingham programme. We will always strive to be better, so we hope to see our successes continue for the next 7 years at least!
Catch our latest updates on our socials! We want you to get involved with us, so follow us on:
