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.

With a whole range of new courses launching in September we were always ready for it to be a busy month with but a visit from England footballer Peter Crouch and with NEET statistics making national news it’s hard to pick the highlights to share with you.

Peter Crouch, a literal giant of English football, came down this month to help launch our new Football Factory scheme. Working in partnership with the FA the project will give young people a wide range of opportunities to practice their football skills including an ongoing league and a recent one-off BBC tournament.

Peter and others have just launched the Team England Footballers Charity and will donate some of their match fees to similar projects. He added "My team mates and I are proud to be associated with this project, today has been rewarding for everyone involved." Read more on the news page of our website.

The Literacy Lunch scheme is a big new volunteering scheme launching at our Women’s Project on October 1st. It’s part of our new ‘Volunteering 10 minutes from your office’ initiative and lets local workers and residents get involved in their lunch breaks or straight after work.

Groups of women who struggle with their English will be paired up with volunteers for regular sessions in our community cafe. If you’re interested in getting involved the launch event is the perfect time to find out more, it runs from 12:00-2:00pm. Please RSVP to Beth.

We’ve worked with Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) young people for 10 years but this month the national media has really picked up on their story. Despite better than ever GCSE results the past couple of years have seen a large increase in youth drop outs and unemployment rates.

We’re delighted to say that our work with partners in Tower Hamlets has had quite the opposite effect and roughly halved NEET figures in recent years. The BBC, ITN, Sky News and CNN all came down to visit us this month to report on the unique work we’re doing to buck the trend. See the videos on the news page of our website.

Using our catering and media social enterprises is a great way to support our work but Thomson Reuters & Restaurant Associates have gone one step further, partnering with us on a new Kitchen Buddies scheme. Women taking our new level 2 Catering and Hospitality certificate and NVQ/apprenticeship will now get the chance to get additional work experience and training in a corporate environment alongside their role within Flavour Gateway.

Chandarani, our Head Chef and start-up member of the enterprise, has piloted the scheme and we can already see the impact of her mentoring as she passes on her new knowledge to other staff. The team are getting used to all her sentences starting “at Thomson Reuters they...”! Visit the Flavour Gateway website.