Warm Skills

London Skills Centre CIC

We are a non-for-profit community interest company established by people who have been involved in education, charity and care sector of young people as teacher, senior leader, headteacher and governor in different educational and voluntary settings. The directors are from BAME community and one of them is a refugee who have first hand knowledge and experience of problems and awareness of the solutions for the young people and families from BAME and refugee communities. Our immediate community is one of the most deprived in London. We are aiming to provide up-skilling and supplementary education opportunities for disadvantaged youth and adults for improvement of their life chances and employability by raising funds. We teach ESOL, Functional Skills and GCSE English and Maths, Coding and digital production skills training. We also provide career and employability counselling and mentoring services and free drop-in sessions for most vulnerable. Eventually, we would like to provide recognised awards such as access to higher education diploma, apprenticeships and T-Levels.

Our Idea

We would like to keep our centre open daily between 5-8pm when the young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. They can have access to computers, online and computer-based learning software and resources such as IXL for Maths and English Skills, Adobe suite for graphic design and video editing skills and Game maker studio for coding and game making skills. We will also provide free sandwiches, fruits, and hot drinks to ease the burden of the cost-of-living crisis. We need your support to pay for the rent, heating, staff, and food during extra provision in the winter months and perhaps longer depending on the funding.

The Need

The people most affected by the Negative impact of Covid 19 and increasing cost of food and energy are BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) youth aged 14-24 in the highly deprived ward of Ponders End in Enfield where we are renting a place to provide supplementary education. These areas are highly diverse and have large migrant populations with a high youth population (26% of the borough under age 19).

The young people from socio-economically disadvantaged communities face negative experiences and a lack of family and institutional support. Issues with confidence, domestic hardships, lack of role models, past and ongoing trauma can create feelings of hopelessness and mean that they are less likely to access mainstream youth activities offered. BAMER youth are therefore disproportionately likely to be disconnected from their local community, underemployed and hindered from achieving their goals. These youth are vulnerable to exploitation and are likely to fall into crime.

There is a huge need for youth services and mentoring to give youth hope and confidence and stop them from falling into crime which occurs at high rates in our area. There were 321 instances of youth crime recorded in 2021 with Upper and Lower Edmonton, Edmonton Green and Ponders End having the highest crime rates in the borough. The Enfield Poverty and Inequality Commission reported that there were 449 young people not in education or training (NEET) in Enfield and that the youth have asked for a ‘clear line of sight’ to progress towards employment.  

The Outcomes

We would bring youth together through our community connections as well as referrals from the council and other youth services.  We believe that our proposed interventions will ameliorate these issues and build the capacity to provide youth with better holistic approach to support their personal development, activities to develop skills for employment and stronger community connections to reduce the risk of exploitation due to crime and radicalisation. 

A guided and structured learning environment in a safe and warm place will reduce unemployment in our local community and have positive socio-economical impact on young people, their families, schools and local businesses.