Welcome to City Gateway's Website.
We provide training and events for young people and women in the Borough of Tower Hamlets working in partnership with a range of other organisations and firms.
Looking to get qualifications or build confidence? Young People Click Here, Women Click Here to find out what we offer.
We provide training and events for young people and women in the Borough of Tower Hamlets working in partnership with a range of other organisations and firms.
Looking to get qualifications or build confidence? Young People Click Here, Women Click Here to find out what we offer.
1999 to 2009 - 10 Years Of Bringing Hope
In 2009 City Gateway celebrated its 10th year of working in Tower Hamlets, expanding from a small part-time course to a Borough wide training, progression and social enterprise hub. We marked our 10th Anniversary with a range of events, starting with our Annual Showcase on March 10th at the East Wintergarden, Canary Wharf - (read all about how that evening went) and climaxing with a reception at 11 Downing Street (read about that here).
The year also saw more than 100 volunteers, from across local firms and the wider community, take up our '10 hours for 10 years' challenge. Finally a number of guest contributors (including local celebrities, politicians and our own service users) had their say in our 10 Year Blog.
It was a great year of celebration and achievement but we are of course looking ahead well into the next 10 years now, in the meantime you can read up on our first ten years below:
1 A group of City workers, from local churches, set up the charity in 1999 with an aim to use the skills and resources of locally based firms to alleviate poverty, unemployment and exclusion.
2 Over the first two years our training expanded to include a specialist web design course, the European Computer Driving Licence and an employment course run in partnership with Ashurst.
3 In 2003 we launched Engage, a unique entry level course centred on soft skills and enjoyability, designed to meet the specific needs of NEET young people.
4 By 2005 we were running programmes right across the Borough, becoming one of 6 recognised community hubs.
5 The Export course provided a natural progression route and a real work-based learning opportunity for young people to develop job skills with local firms.
6 In 2006 funding from Beyond the Barn allowed us to launch our social enterprise hub and five social enterprises, providing work experience, training, and even jobs, to local residents.
7 London Development Agency funding, linked to the 2012 Olympics, enabled us to apply our experience to a new women's project launched at Lansbury Lodge, Poplar, in 2007.
8 Our youth team expanded its own provision by launching a regular evening youth club at the Limehouse Youth Centre, in partnership with Poplar HARCA, with a studio and community gym.
9 We launched our formal NVQ apprenticeship scheme in 2008, building on internal apprenticeships that had been running for over five years, with support from more than a dozen firms.
10 2008 saw our enterprise hub move into its own premises on Whitechapel High Street - allowing our media enterprise to expand. 2009 saw the launch of Flavour Gateway Catering.
"Hope has been the fuel of the City Gateway engine for over ten years now and its source is not running dry. It was hope that enabled us to believe in the first seven students who joined us in an old school in Spitalfields; hope that enabled our first corporate partner to give us £10,000 to run the first term; hope that enabled our first staff to give up their stable and lucrative jobs for work in a start-up charity with only 3 months funding. As we look back on the past 10 years we owe much to those pioneering risk takers who took a hopeful leap in the dark with us.
We celebrate ten years of bringing hope to Tower Hamlets and thank all of our staff, partners, trustees, funders and students, old and new, who have joined us in believing in the Borough and in City Gateway. Please join us for another energising ten years."
Dirk Paterson, Chairman of the City Gateway trustees
