Breaking down barriers
Be the Change was a ground breaking, inspirational programme aimed at students who may face challenges and difficulties within their school environment. The programme focused on happiness, confidence, hope, relationships and employability and encouraged students to identify their personal barriers to success, before helping them find ways of overcoming them.
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Business representatives from organisations across the local area were invited to be involved in the programme as business guides and positive role models – they worked closely with the students, sharing their experiences and stories of their career journeys, as well as encouraging the students and listening to their day to day struggles.
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Meeting on up to 6 separate occasions during the academic year (including three large scale conferences, 1:1 sessions and workplace visits), the programme helped students to understand what positive changes they need to make in order to realise their aspirations, and what qualities are required to be successful in business and the workplace.
Be the Change Values
Happiness, confidence, hope, relationships and employability and encouraged students to identify their personal barriers to success, before helping them find ways of overcoming them.
Be the Change helped open student’s eyes to the world of work and the wealth of the possibilities and career opportunities in their hometown and beyond. It also provided a great opportunity for businesses to engage with their future workforce, building awareness of their employer brand amongst young people in their local area and providing an innovative way of providing fulfilling and meaningful personal development opportunities for their employees.
Inspirational one day conferences include an array of powerful, interactive and engaging workshops, presentations, one-on-one and group activities.
These sessions gave the business guides and students the chance to discuss the impact of the conference and explore each students strengths, hopes and influences, along with their challenges perceived barriers and possible solutions.
Workplace visits offered the students an insight into the world of work and helped them gain a better understanding of the different roles and departments and the skills and qualifications needed for those positions and areas of the business.
The programme wass broken down into 3 stages:
The Objectives:
Increase
To increase business mentoring in schools
Develop
To develop the life skills & employability skills of young people
Create
To create sustainable networking opportunities for young people
Build
To build stronger & more meaningful partnerships
between local schools & businesses
Encourage
To encourage sharing of best practice for careers teaching between local schools
Create
To create more meaningful work experience opportunities for young people
Strengthen
To strengthen the profile of local employers and related career
opportunities
Inspire
To inspire young people to consider their route into employment whether that be through FE, HE, apprenticeships, traineeships or work experience placements
94%
94% of business guides felt more positive about their own job as a result of volunteering at Be the Change
Be the Change Supporters
Thank you to all supporters and sponsors across the entire LoveLocalJobs Foundation CIC.
Without you, we would not be able to do the work that we do.