Inspires me

Young Green Entrepreneur Programme

Young Green Entrepreneur Programme is an ‘Apprentice style’ competition in which 6 groups of young people at risk of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) from 3 different schools in Newham participate in a structured programme of business skills workshops and training sessions.

Workspace was partnered with Rokeby School, Newham to help a group of 15 year 10 students with their social action project. The theme they chose was ‘a campaign to encourage young people to be outside and use their local park more to enhance their physical and mental wellbeing’.

A group of Workspace employees volunteered to deliver several different workshops to aid students in delivering their project. Session topics included sustainability, budgeting, presentation skills and marketing. The students visited Pill Box and Kennington Park business centres for a workplace visit to get a feel for what it is like to work at a flexible office space.

The final workshop was held in our boardroom where our Operations Director gave them a brief overview of how Workspace operates as a business, followed by short presentations from various employees from departments from across the business. Each presentation included a summary of their role, their career pathway, any work experience they needed and a Q&A session.

Our HR team also held a CV workshop with the students and Workspace employees volunteered to take practice interviews. On the back of these interviews, three students were then selected for work experience placements.

All three work experience students provided positive feedback and one student came back for an extra week. In addition to these students, Workspace have provided a further 14 work experience placements.

Kim Vann, Youth Worker at Groundwork, commented “Workspace have been so supportive of the project and have made a positive impact on the students with their support and workshops. Workspace employees have been very attentive and made everyone feel very welcome and really have shown belief in the project and the students. Thank you Workspace!”

Garden Design and Implementation Project

In autumn 2019, Year 9 Design and Technology students at St Gabriel’s College took part in a garden design project for their playground. Four volunteers from Workspace helped the class to develop their project management and budgeting skills. The class were split into teams and the final plan was based on the winning design.

Earlier this Summer, we worked with environmental charity Groundwork to implement this design into the St Gabriel College playground. 15 Workspace volunteers plus four students from St Gabriel’s College spent the day building bench planters (from scratch) and planting fruit trees, ferns, flowers and edibles.

Vinay, the school business manager, said: “The Workspace team did a really good job implementing the design. I am really pleased with how it’s turned out”.

London College of Communication’s Talent Works programme

Workspace partnered with the London College of Communication’s Talen Works programme, providing a 1,847sq ft space at Kennington Park to hold their two-week pop-up content creation studio for 30 students. Previously LCC have run similar projects within their own building, but they found that students get a richer experience in an external venue as it feels more like a professional job than another college project, and it teaches them what working in the real world can be like.  

The students were given briefs from 13 local charities and enterprises, with projects covering filmmaking, print and digital design, motion graphics, animation, UX and social media strategy. The work was free to the clients and LCC paid the students. The project is aimed at students who would otherwise struggle to get their first paid creative job, perhaps because they are carers, have no family support or don’t have the networks. They gain experience working with real clients, develop their soft skills, and work for their portfolios.