Special guests to celebrate Olympic effort of region’s job seekers and creators

Job-seeking young people from across the D2N2 area will be recognised at an awards ceremony this month at the Talent Match Awards, celebrating the effort and progress they have made to make their employment ambitions a reality.

Hosted by Groundwork Greater Nottingham at the city’s Crowne Plaza Hotel on Wednesday 13th December, over 200 guests will hear from an inspiring selection of speakers, including gold medal winning British Paralympian Stephanie Millward.

Stephanie will be speaking about her accomplishments and also speaking about her barriers to motivate and inspire others.

Stephanie will be joined by entertainment and business coach Sharon Roberts and Lauren Mistry from Youth Employment UK. Lauren will be speaking about the newly founded Talent Match Kite mark, the first of its kind for employers to celebrate their good practice in supporting and developing a young workforce.

Talent Match is an innovative unemployment programme targeting 18-24 year old’s who are furthest from the jobs market, including those who are completely outside of the benefits, work and training system and facing severe barriers to gaining the skills they need to get into work.

Groundwork Greater Nottingham was awarded £6.2 million of new funding aimed at supporting young long-term unemployed people into work over five years, to facilitate the programme over the D2N2 LEP area.

Youth unemployment is now one of the greatest challenges facing the country. In the current economic climate there is a danger that more young people will become long-term unemployed and move further away from being work-ready. With this in mind, the Big Lottery Fund launched an ambitious investment of up to £100 million to deliver creative ways to help young people find work or start their own enterprising business.

The Talent Match awards showcase the fantastic work the third sector partners do in tackling youth unemployment and supporting young people. Every year the event is planned and organised by young people on the programme.

Colin Bradley at Groundwork Greater Nottingham said: “We are incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to recognise the effort and progress young people on our programme have made to make their employment dreams come true. We see every day the struggles that these young people face and the effort they expend trying to overcome, what many of us would consider to be insurmountable obstacles.

“These young people have designed, driven and supported the programme to meet their needs and help and encourage others, they are a real credit to themselves and to us all.“
Since the launch of the programme nearly 1000 young people have been supported, with nearly 300 of these having found employment.

In addition there will be attendees from the voluntary sector, local authority along with industry professionals from employment support agencies across Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire.

Alongside all of this there will be food and live entertainment to match the theme chosen by young people of Winter Festival.