Entry to work – Rathbone Peer Mentoring Project (Mar – May 2009)
Hackney has a number of great resources to help young people find their way into further education, training or employment, and in 2009 ecoACTIVE spent a number of weeks working closely with Rathbone, an organization that provides training, work experience and apprenticeships to young adults between 15 and 24 years old.
We took part in the ‘Entry to Employment’ (e2e) programme, running sessions where participants learned more about waste reduction and recycling. These were followed by some hands-on training in paper recycling and scrap art & craft projects designed to prepare the students for delivering a workshop at a local school, Brook Community Primary.
The young adults taking part in our sessions really enjoyed passing on their new skills to the primary school pupils, saying “…Teaching the primary kids what we learnt over the past few weeks was fun and interesting. I recommend others do it too.”
It was rewarding to help young adults develop skills that they can use – not just environmental awareness but the ability to communicate and work with others to pass on their knowledge – and we hope to do more in the coming year.
