It’s been a busy week!
On Wednesday 8th March Jonathan Mears, our champion for the North East, met with Owen McAteer, Foundation for Jobs Coordinator at Darlington Borough Council. During the meeting, they discussed some very interesting opportunities to create new jobs in the town, and Owen shared some very useful contacts in businesses in the area. We look forward to working more closely with Darlington Borough Council in the future to open up job opportunities for young people with disabilities.
Also, occurring on Wednesday was a positive meeting between Anna Denham and Commissioners for the 0-25 SEND Team at Hertfordshire County Council. Meanwhile on Friday 10th March Hannah Ross, one of our champions for Manchester, is attending a meeting with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council to discuss their internship programme and meet their current interns.
We’re also preparing for a meeting on Monday 13th March with Sue Waddington, Assistant City Mayor, Jobs & Skills, at Leicester City Council. Our Champion for Leicester, Amir Pathan, will be attending.
We thank all our I Can Make It champions for their efforts and hard work! But we need more champions to make more progress.
We’re looking in the North East, across towns and cities such as Darlington, to complement the excellent work mentioned above that Jonathan has been doing for the campaign. We’re also looking for champions in The Home Counties as we now have some progress with Surrey; Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Essex to build on the initial success we have made in contacting councils across the region.
So, if you are 18-29, have a disability or health condition and live in any of those areas, or any of our other target areas and want to help to improve the career prospects of yourself and other young people with disabilities and health conditions, then please get in touch with us on 0207 250 8193 or via leo.capella@disabilityrightsuk.org
Places are still available at I Can Make It Exchange, taking place on Monday 27th March. Our champions will be attending as will our confirmed speakers who include Anne Lythgoe, (Social Value Award Winner) at Salford City Council, Hugh Chamberlain, CSR Lead, Johnson & Johnson and Guy Battle of the Social Value Portal. If you haven’t received an invite and would like to attend, please contact anna.denham@disabilityrightsuk.org.
And one final thing. We’d to extend our warmest congratulations to one of our champions for Manchester, Andrew Tarpey, on gaining employment with The Agility Team at Lloyds Banking Group. We’re extremely pleased for Andrew, and wish him well in his new role.