Bringing employment skills to young people in Hull through food

Creating opportunity in Hull

Giroscope is a housing charity in Hull who also support young people into fair-wage employment. They feel that no one should feel isolated from their community for reasons of poverty, homelessness or prejudice.

Alongside housing and employment services they run satellite projects teaching valuable life skills and creating social inclusion including refurbishing bikes, computers and furniture and community gardening. They also have a fully equipped training kitchen.

Giroscope applied for funding to fund long term education, training and support for young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) in the Hull area, to support them into employment in the food and catering industry.

Supporting local people

Over the course of three years they want to put 75 young people – 25 a year – through the programme and move them a lot closer, or actually into, employment in the catering and hospitality sector.

They plan to do this through:

• Positive supportive engagement with unemployed young people in their neighbourhood.
• Teaching skills in catering and hospitality.
• Offering accredited relevant qualifications
• Practical experience in the workplace through work placements at The Zoo cafe in Hull.

Giroscope know that young people will find purpose in engaging in a productive activity and they’ll learn valuable life skills, alongside accredited qualifications and employability skills.

The whole process will build individuals self confidence and optimism and help reduce social isolation.

The neighbourhood in West Hull where Giroscope offer the programme is notoriously deprived with many ingrained social and economic problems.

Levels of unemployment among young people run at high levels. The neighbourhoods all lie within the bottom 5% of the Index of Multiple Deprivation rankings in England, most fall within the bottom 1%.

Giroscope also have a weekly supervised Job Club where they assist with CV & cover letter writing and job searching.

The Zoo Café, Giroscope’s own on[1]site café will give the learners the opportunity to gain front of house experience to further boost their skills and confidence, increasing their chances of employment.