City Gateway is a charity dedicated to bringing hope to the local communities of Tower Hamlets - we were set up by a group of City workers keen to support the community around them.

June was National Volunteering Month and we want to flag up some key events that we've been putting on. You may also want to check out our '10 Year Blog' for the insights of some volunteers, Tessa Jowell and Iain Duncan Smith.

We've Connected with a brand new partner this month in the form of these West London consultants. An ongoing partnership launched with a fantastic 48 hour challenge, transforming our women's project's garden and youth centre's music studio.

Whilst half the team cycled from Wales to London to raise money, the other half diligently spent it on the work and on two community events, celebrating our 10th anniversary and launching a new garden project and our Sunday openings. More than 20 volunteers and 300 guests were involved - read more here.

We're always looking for new ways to Engage the families we work with and Goldman Sachs' annual volunteering project proved the perfect opportunity this month. The extra hands and resources have allowed us to run day trips to the Tower of London and Greenwich as well as an extra Powerpoint class at the centre.

Flavour Gateway, our new catering social enterprise, provided lunch for all at our women's project - making sure not only that everyone was well fed but that they had time to get chatting too.

We've continued to develop our new customer service Training stream in partnership with HSS Hire - their regular volunteering commitment has allowed us to launch a new apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship course, as well as including new sessions across a range of our programmes.

This month also sees Canary Wharf Group taking a second women's Business Admin course under their wing whilst Denton Wilde Sapte have lined up to resource our next pre-apprenticeship IT course. If your company would like to get involved contact Jerry.

Helping individuals become positively engaged in the community and ultimately into Work remains our underlying goal. In a month that saw record high national NEET certificates we're proud to say we're working at the heart of a Borough that has seen figures more than half from 15%.

The youth apprenticeship scheme is our flagship route into work and with rolling courses in IT, sport and customer service we have a continual stream of young people looking to get stuck into employment - if there's a role they could be filling in your work place then let Roxroy know!