Twice a week, 20 eager young people sit in front of computers in South London and learn vital skills that they aren’t taught in school, such as writing a CV or creating a money management spreadsheet.
And it’s all thanks to a grant from the Happiness Fund.
The skills training scheme is run by The Empowerment People, a community interest company, and our grant has enabled it to buy 16 refurbished PCs, to add to the four the organisation already had.
The Empowerment People Director, Daniel Gregory, explains why the grant has been so important.
“We were ecstatic to be awarded the funds,” he says. “It allowed us to provide a basic level of technology education in the things that the school curriculum doesn’t touch on. We call them skills for life, and we work with young people from the age of 13 upwards to make sure they have the necessary skills base to thrive.”
Daniel explains that there is a widely held misconception that all young people are tech wizards.
“That only applies to social media in most cases,” he says. “But ask them to convert a PDF into a Word document or download a job application and fill it in, and they are lost. We fill that gap. The skills we provide future-proof the people we support because the likelihood is that whatever career path they go down, these skills will be applicable. For example, 96 per cent of job applications now have to be filled out online. If they don’t know how to use programmes like Word or Outlook, they get stuck at the first hurdle.”
Daniel set up The Empowerment People after the pandemic when he realised that the online shift it precipitated continued long after lockdowns ended, and that the digital divide created between those with easy access to technology and Wi-Fi and those without persisted.
He explains: “A lot of provision is now precipitated online, such as GP appointments, utilities and local authority services. Not everyone knows how to negotiate this. There are a lot of people who need support. When I was in school, there was a Microsoft Office certification you could study for, which taught you how to use programmes to a proficient level. There’s nothing like that anymore, and this is the gap we try to bridge.”
Each service user gets a personal development plan.
“We try to be as individual as possible in the group sessions, which are booked up three weeks in advance, so we are always looking for donations and volunteers as we receive no statutory funding,” Daniel adds.
Thanks to the Happiness Fund, hundreds of young people will now get the opportunity to take advantage of this important service.
