With over eight construction firms pitching their support, Hope in Tottenham proudly announces the launch of a brand-new work opportunity initiative for CONEL and Waltham Forest College construction students.
By Omar Alleyne-Lawler, Communications Manager
In a meeting to broker mentoring relationships between students, education/skill providers and construction firms at which Tottenham MP David Lammy was present, HiT shared its vision and action plan to improve job prospects within the borough.
David Lammy MP. opened the launch with an acknowledgement on how difficult finding work has been for his Tottenham constituents throughout the pandemic.
Hope in Tottenham thanks representatives from Arcadis, Argent, Rackham Construction, Cubit Consulting, Trombe Ltd, LTS Refurbishment and Mace Group for attending the launch event which also witnessed powerful and moving personal stories being shared.
At the end of the launch event, three CONEL students were immediately paired with industry mentors with Waltham Forest students being paired later this week.
Mentoring Manager, Eleanor Henderson discusses the logistics and capacity of the plan which hopes to take on over 1000 students at full capacity.
The launch set out to discover common ground for students, local businesses and education providers whose frequent experience is that the pathway to studying, gaining work experience and eventual full-time employment in the construction industry is difficult to navigate and chronically underfunded. This latter point was emphasised in David Lammy’s well-received remarks who spoke about the ‘disproportionate burden’ many of his constituents have had to shoulder with job losses and furloughs during the course of the pandemic alone.
To attempt to address the challenges, Hope in Tottenham’s initiative builds on the existing work spearheaded by Mentoring Manager, Eleanor Henderson, which connects students with industry experts from day one, so to speak. In doing so, Hope in Tottenham not only seeks to get students into employment quickly but promises to help them build vital interpersonal networks which are indispensable in sustaining their careers for the long term
The HiT-spearheaded scheme could potentially help hundreds of students when it reaches full capacity, supporting up to 1,300 construction students from the two colleges. To begin, Hope in Tottenham has launched the project with six students; three from CONEL and three from Waltham Forrest, with Eleanor Henderson’s direct supervision.
Though HiT recognises that this initiative resembles existing employment initiatives, Mentoring Manager Eleanor says it has not been designed to compete or replicate them. Hope in Tottenham’s goal is to initially support the underserved adult learning community who already have construction experience, but have struggled to secure work in the field.