News & events

Service leavers given the chance to build a brighter future

Over 60 ex-military personnel attended the first in a series of BuildForce industry awareness events specifically for Service leavers interested in finding out about careers in construction. A number of industry employers have joined together to provide a minimum of 70 work placements for Service leavers in an effort to bridge the expanding skills gap and provide Service leavers with a new career path.

BuildForce is a programme created for Service leavers who are interested in finding out about career opportunities in the construction and built environment sector. It is designed...

Training opportunities in construction for lucky Southwark locals!

We are recruiting Southwark residents to take part in free construction skills courses at our local training facility on the Aylesbury Estate. The lucky young people will learn different construction skills at our fantastic training facility which was donated by Southwark Council. The disused office building has been used by the Trust since February 2013 and is an ideal space for young people to learn.

As part of the programme young people have been working on the space to transform it into a training and learning space by undertaking the plastering, wallpaapering, carpentry and...

Providing a new start for young homeless people

I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by an ITN film crew this week as part of the People’s Millions, which launches on Monday 25th November. The news crew came down to Southwark where we have a pop-up training facility and filmed the young people at work and interviewed me, Rob, one of our trainers, and Josh, a young person who we have helped into work. It was great to be able to tell our story and why our work is so necessary in deprived communities. We want to secure people’s votes on the day so that we can win £50,000 to fund a new project Build Better Lives we...

We won the People's Millions!

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have won the People's Millions competition! We would not have been able to do this without you. Thank you for voting for us! The prize was £50,000 which we will use to run our Build Brighter Futures project working with charity Centrepoint to support young homeless people living at an Ealing hostel.

They will learn new construction skills, meet with potential employers, gain a qualification and refurbish parts of their hostel in need of repair. Last week a short film about our project was shown on ITV London news and the...

Local Southwark residents chosen for Heygate demolition jobs

Over 20 local Southwark residents have been given jobs or training as part of the demolition of the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle thanks to a new partnership set up to create employment and training opportunities for the local community. Lend Lease is delivering Southwark Council’s regeneration of Elephant and Castle.

As part of the project, Lend Lease’s charity - Be Onsite - has partnered with us to provide job opportunities to Southwark residents. Over the next 15 years, the regeneration will create around 5,000 new jobs in the local area. The Partnership...

Helping those in supported housing find security

I was delighted this week when some of my team met with the charity Centrepoint to discuss our exciting new project which has reached the finals of the ITV/Big Lottery Fund’s People’s Millions project. Centrepoint have been working to get young homeless people into work and stable housing for many years and it is great to find ideas of things we can do together. We encounter many young people who are in supported housing when we do our training projects.

When we think of homelessness we often think of people living rough on the streets but in fact it covers anyone in...

Pathway to construction for young people from Manchester

We have been working with a group of young people from the local area to regenerate a dirt track used as a short cut through Platt Fields Park in Fallowfield. The project is supported by Manchester City Council and Carillion Construction Services.

This project is a great opportunity for local unemployed young people to learn construction skills on a real project and not just in a classroom. The Practical Community Project involves subcontractor Murraywood working with the young people to dig out the dirt track and lay a new path for members of the public to use as an additional...

Empty office space to become new training facility

We are transforming an empty office space in Southwark in to a new full time training facility, and are looking for support to help us achieve our mission.

The Trust is once again thrilled to be using the empty office space kindly provided by Southwark Council, to deliver introductory construction to local young people. Working in partnership with referral agencies from across the borough the Trust is currently delivering its second Mobile Classroom programme from the site and planning is underway to deliver longer more intensive training which will also see the venue transformed...

Trainees in Manchester get creative in carpentry course

Young Trafford locals build planters and bird houses in a recent Mobile Classroom course with the Trust

The young people aged between 14 and 30 from Trafford recently completed a 12-week Mobile Classroom course with the Trust funded by Sale West Community Urban Trust. The trainees undertook a Level 1 Open College Network (OCN) accredited course in Carpentry & Joinery in which they covered constructing to drawings, measuring and cutting, cutting mortise and tenon joints using a range of woordworking hand tools and using different types of woods.

The young people...

Trust trainees help refurbish disused Redhill community space

The Trust is running a 6 week Open College Network (OCN) accredited construction course in Redhill for young locals aged between 16 and 24.

The course is run in partnership with Raven Housing Trust, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, Reigate & Redhill Community Church (RRCC), Legal & General and Orbit Group. The RRCC had been looking to refurbish a town centre unit into a community and youth facility and this was a great opportunity to provide training to local young people in a real working environment.

The Trust’s trainers will teach practical and...

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