Announcing today’s awards from BIG’s Life Transition scheme, Big Lottery Fund Scotland Chair, Alison Magee, said: “Leaving care, trying to develop skills for the workplace and adjusting to adult life are just some of the major issues affecting many young people across Scotland every day. With this ten million pound investment we want to help tackle some of these real life issues by supporting projects that look at different ways of making powerful and enduring changes in the lives of young people. This in turn will help to break down some of the emotional and physical barriers that are stopping them from reaching their full potential.”
Vulnerable young people who are either looked after/leaving care or in a Young Offenders Institute are set to benefit from a grant of £845,100 to Young Enterprise Scotland. The project will give young people the chance to design, set up, and run a small scale business over a period of 13 weeks, with any profits given to charity. The aim of this is to inspire people to take their lives in new directions. 300 people in Glasgow, Edinburgh and the central belt will benefit.
Commenting on the award, Stuart Miller, Chief Executive at Young Enterprise Scotland, said: “Young Enterprise Scotland is absolutely delighted with this award from the Big Lottery Fund to further our work with those young people who are from a ‘hard to reach’ background. The funding will help YES build on our existing programmes and continue to add value to the work of our partner organisations in this field to support young people to reach their full potential and become ready to enter employment, training or education.”
YES
calls for more rehabilitation action for young offenders
to make long term changes
Young offenders are more likely
to make a life change if they are motivated by meaningful activity and
employability skills, according to a leading enterprise in education provider.
Stuart Miller, Chief Executive of Young
Enterprise Scotland (YES), said more needs to be done to rehabilitate Scotland’s young offenders to prevent them
entering a lifetime of crime, speaking at the Scottish Youth Offending
Conference in Edinburgh
on 25 November.
The conference – hosted by the
White Paper Conference Company – aims to look at ways to stop young people from
becoming offenders by bringing together leading experts from the fields of
child psychology, behaviour and youth development.
Focusing on 10 evidence-based
initiatives to tackle the root causes of youth offending and break the cycle of
reoffending, the conference also included representatives from Crew 2000, The
Gladiator Programme and Wilderness Foundation UK.
One of Scotland’s leading
providers of enterprise in education, Young Enterprise Scotland has widened its
approach in recent years to reach all young people aged five to 25 wherever
they can be engaged.
The Mean Business programme
involves a group of young offenders setting up and running their own company
within the young offender institution, in doing so learning about business and
developing employability skills such as communication, team work, confidence
and self-esteem.
Stuart said: “The Mean Business
programme has proven effective in making a difference to the lives and
behaviour of young offenders.
“By properly rehabilitating
these young people, we not only have the ability to improve their behaviour and
attitude within the institution but to prevent them reoffending on release, and
contribute to a more productive society.”
The programme in HMYOI Polmont
has been recognised as best practice by HMIe
(Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education) and has a long waiting list. As well
as the business part of the programme, YES runs the Your Future initiative to
help young offenders prepare for real life on release.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) Director of the Year Awards 2009 will take place on Thursday 11 March 2010 at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, Edinburgh.
The Awards focus not simply on individual achievement but also on the importance of the director's role in the community and the commitment and expertise contributed to businesses large and small.
The quality of nominations has been of a consistently high standard over the 5 years since the awards' inception, reflecting the high calibre of individuals in Scotland's boardrooms: men and women who lead their companies forward with courage and dynamism.
The Awards are open to all Scottish directors, whether IoD members or not, and the categories include both national and regional awards. There must be many people who have performed well, against the prevailing odds, to warrant the recognition of a nomination. Previous nominees have told us that it is extraordinarily motivational to know that their efforts have been recognised in this way, whether or not they go on to win an award.
Full information on how to nominate a director can be found here.
IoD sponsors the Young Director Award for Young Enterprise Scotland - this year's winner is Grant Finlay from Spotlight Enterprises, Belmont Academy, Ayrshire. Grant will be attending the event to receive his award.
YES on Facebook!
YES is now on Facebook! To join our group, go to Facebook sign in to your account and search for "Young Enterprise Scotland". There, you can meet other interested members and keep up to date with all the latest YES developments!
Continued Success for Farr
Congratulations to Farr Woodcraft, YES's overall company 2009 who have won the Young Enterprise Production Award supported by GKN plc at the Young Enterprise UK Finals in London! The Production Award recognises excellence in production of a Young Enterprise company's product or service.
The UK Finals took place on Wednesday 8 July in London and Farr with their Award came in third place overall.
Of their win, the Farr team said: "Our team believed that we stood a good chance of winning the Production Award, now to have won it we are delighted especially as we were placed 3rd Overall Winner in the whole of the UK - it is brilliant!"
Stuart Miller, Chief Executive, Young Enterprise Scotland said: "The team from Farr High School are true ambassadors for entrepreneurial spirit and enterprise education in Scotland. It was interesting that the judging panel passed comment noting that Farr Woodcraft targeted the high end of the market place with a quality product that delivered on all accounts".
YES company Pursuit from Lothian were also at the UK Awards to receive their CISCO IT Award. Pursuit's business is a website (www.pursuituk.com) where pupils can buy and sell past papers from each other at a lower cost than through other sites.
You can read more about the UK Finals here and read the article in the Telegraph about Young Enterprise here.
Pictured below (L-R) are are team members Harris Mackay, Lorna Stewart, Jamie Lewis and Callum McEwan with their winning cheque!
Young Enterprise Scotland has a unique volunteer network of over 600 business people and educationalists from across Scotland and includes over 200 Area Board members. This network of eighteen Area Boards across Scotland ensures that geography is never a barrier to participation and ensures local schools are supported and managed.
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