Congratulations to our very own Phil Williams who ran the London Marathon to raise money for the City Gateway apprenticeship scheme!!

Phil completed the gruelling course in a respectable 5 hours and was even up and at work the following day - obviously he wasn't trying hard enough!

So far loads of people have sponsored Phil but he's desperate to raise more money, and it's not too late. So click here to Sponsor Phil and show your support. All of the money raised goes into supporting social and economic regeneration in Tower Hamlets through helping talented young people.

Following Ken Livingstone's announcement of milions of £'s for additional East End development in the run up to 2012, Eddie was asked onto London radio station LBC to comment on how our funding would help us launch our new women's project at Lansbury Lodge Community Centre. The project will work with local women to develop their skills and help them find employment.

Eddie also commented on the recent spate of gun and knife crime in London and how City Gateway is directly working to reduce this locally by engaging the hardest-to-reach young people in Tower Hamlets.

Import is City Gateway's main outreach program and is the first point of contact for most people who will go on to become trainees with us. The Ocean estate is a key focus area and we recently expanded the outreach we do here, taking The Bus, along with a team of personal advisers, to more sessions.

The Ocean Football Outreach Programme runs 3 nights a week and engages with groups of as many as 40 young people. This is a fantastic way to meet young people and engage them in doing something positive and healthy. Our schools work goes on in two main local schools, Stepney Green and Sir John Cass, and supports students at risk of exclusion.

Many contacts we make on the Ocean have gone on to achieve well on our training courses and earn valuable qualifications and life skills.

The next Engage course is due to start on Friday 27th April. We currently have 14 trainees booked in with more being recruited, ready to learn. The last Engage course finished with even more young people gaining level 1 qualifications in IT, multimedia, sport and lifeskills.

Engage-Plus ended on the 13th April with 8 trainees progressing straight onto Export. The group worked well together and not only have gained qualifications, but also agree they have developed better friendships on Engage-Plus.

The new Export course has begun with 35 trainees diving into and intensive training programme that will end in July and include work placements in the middle of May.

Many of the Export trainees have been away on a residential to Calshot Activities Centre in Hampshire, which was an exciting opportunity for them to get to build together as a group and learn more about teamwork and leadership skills. We expect great things!

Other great news is that two of our trainees, Janna and Sabina have applied to the Youth Opportunities fund for a grant to run local projects! We wish them all the best.

Reiss

Reiss, as his name suggests, is a man of flair and certainly has a very bright future ahead of him!

Reiss is currently doing the Export course and at the same time is volunteering with us and helping to run the Engage / Engage Plus courses in the first half of the week. Reiss has won a place at University in September where he'll study Law part time, whilst also working part time in the legal profession.

Reiss is great and we have heard many glowing reports about him - he is variously described as hardworking, very helpful, reliable and funny! We're all for this sort of thing!

Now, we at City Gateway know that due to the Creative Me market stall in Spitalfields taking a break that some people may become starved of hand-made accessories, jewellery, clothing and art.

To counteract this craft vacuum, Charlotte and the Creative Me-ers have been busy in getting local shops to stock and sell a wide variety of Creative Me created creations! So if you need your Creative Me goods, then take a look in the Apple Tree on Commercial Street to find all your favourite things, and watch this space for other shops joining in too!

Following on from the successful launch of Re:live, the boys from Gateway Media have been making a short promotional and informational video for Denton Wilde Sapte, who run the 'Poplaw' Advice Centre in Chrisp Street Ideas Store. Whitechapel highstreet.

The film crew recently shadowed them as they dished out legal advice and free soup at an early morning Soup Kitchen on Whitechapel Highstreet where they help out. The film also includes some of their international projects and even a section on the charity making the video (that's right, us!).

Thanks to a crash course in all things green, provided by the London Environmental Centre, City Gateway's now going on a green binge… printing double sided, increasing our recycling and making sure electricity's not going to waste are just to begin with… watch this space.

And if you're wondering how to start making your operation greener ask us about our IT/furniture recycling schemes. Together we can make everything greener, quite a bit greener, and not illness or envy green, but jolly green...

Fiona resembles a badger in more ways than one, and most of which involve digging. The others involve getting angry if you spell her name wrong. Fiona is one of our outreach workers and spends 3 days a week engaging young people in schools and on the streets, including some of the hardest-to-reach.

Fiona is on placement with City Gateway as part of a 'Youth and Community Work with Applied Theology' course she is studying in Cambridge. The contrast between these places is striking - much like the stripes of a badger.

Fiona says "I'm loving having the opportunity to learn but also to practice and apply what I'm learning here". We lone Fiona and if you'd like to tell her how much you appreciate her, then email her on Fiona@citygateway.org.uk.

We are sad to say goodbye to our trusty DJ / bus driver / multimedia man Paul O'Neal. After running the Bus and Gateway Media Education, Paul is moving on to become a webdesigner. No one will be able to replace him and his "choons". Knowing Paul has been great fun and he'll really be missed.

Eyes were tearful as Paul said his farewells and he is quoted as saying "I love City Gateway, I love Eddie, I love you all". Really emotional stuff!

We Just a quick note to say that if the unthinkable happened and for some catastrophic reason you lost, misplaced or deleted your e-copy of the e-News, then rest assured that you can now see all the past e-News issues on the City Gateway website in the brand new 'e-News Archive'.