Bath-based housing and support organisation Curo is to launch a programme of activities for 100 vulnerable young people who are not in education, employment or training after securing finance from a special fund run by NatWest.
The Working Well programme will aim to improve participants’ wellbeing and employability through coaching in cooking, employment goals, gaining qualifications and money management. Many of the young people are at risk of being homeless.
Curo will fund the programme, which will cover Bath and North East Somerset, with £34,500 it won under a NatWest programme dedicated to supporting projects in disadvantaged communities that help people to help themselves by learning new skills, getting into the world of work or setting up their own business.
Curo director of health, care and support, Harriet Bosnell, said: “We’d like to thank NatWest for this amazing opportunity to deliver our Working Well project.
“Working Well will help young people to develop vital skills that can improve their employability. This grant will have a potentially life-changing effect on the young people we support – many of whom have faced homelessness – giving them a strong foundation to build on and succeed in life.”
The six winning organisations for the NatWest Skills and Opportunities Fund were chosen from a shortlist of 14 by a panel of judges from NatWest’s South West and Wales Regional Board, along with a public vote.
Board chairman Haydn Thomas said: “We are delighted to be able to help six very diverse and worthy winners across the South West and Wales with a share of this funding.
“We were impressed with the fact that Curo’s programme is designed alongside the young people it aims to support. We felt that the scheme included a series of useful activities which will help improve the participants’ lives enormously and will help them to achieve their full potential.”
Curo provides affordable homes and high-quality care and support services across the West of England. It manages 12,000 homes and builds hundreds of homes every year.
NatWest’s Skills and Opportunities Fund is distributing grants totalling £2.5m to projects that are expected to reach more than 25,000 people in a year.
Pictured, from left: Angie Wrigley and Russell Batten of Curo, Jon Hemming of NatWest, Chris Smith from Curo’s supported accommodation, and Louise Swain, Curo executive director.
