City Gateway Apprentice meets David Cameron

On Monday 23rd May the front page of the Evening Standard covered the story of Nabil Ahmed, a City Gateway apprentice, meeting David Cameron in Number 10 Downing Street. Nabil’s story is amazing, you can read it here. It was a great day for Nabil and an important indication that the government are becoming increasingly aware and willing to tackle the issues facing NEET young people, the challenges in getting qualifications that properly prepare them for work and crucially the personal care and commitment than an organisation like City Gateway provides. Nabil is one of hundreds of apprentices who have come through City Gateway’s training courses and apprenticeships, to be in a much stronger position to contribute to employers. He is now starting a Level 3 apprenticehip in IT with us.

What is City Gateway doing to combat youth unemployemnt in Tower Hamlets?

City Gateway connected with over 1000 young people in the last financial year and over 300 were enrolled on our training courses. City Gateway has had a critical impact in lowering the NEET figures for Tower Hamlets from 15% of 16-18s in 2009 to 6.5% in 2010. We also achieved an

Outstanding

Ofsted grade, the highest for a work Based training organisation. We place around 140 apprentices a year and in 2011 we are increasing our training provision to Level 3 apprenticeships across IT, Customer Service and Sports courses, as well as a new Level 2 apprenticeship in Catering and Hospitality to help combat the mismatch of young people’s skills and the current job market.

Our work could not be achieved without the work that we do in partnership with organisations like yours. We are so grateful for the commitment of many corporate firms and other partners in the process, but there are still 104,000 young people who are NEET in London each with a grim outlook on life needing the kind of input City Gateway gives, which David Cameron described as, ‘help from people who know their name and care about where they're going.’

How you can help others like Nabil get trained and into apprenticeships.

Offering apprenticeship placements is a fantastic way to help other trainees like Nabil gain the experience and confidence to kick-start to their working careers that they so crucially need. With new courses starting up we are in need to even more people to take on our apprentices to give them the chance they need to succeed and contribute to your business at the same time.

You could also get involved by coming to do corporate volunteering with our young people and social enterprises, running employability workshops, speed interviews, host an insight tour in your office, and many other ways.

If you are interested about finding out more about apprenticeships and how simple it is to take one on, call 020 3189 0405 or email

sarah.webster@citygateway.org.uk