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North East firms land NatWest skills funding to support community projects

Three North East organisations have been awarded funding from NatWest £2.5m Skills and Opportunities Fund, dedicated to supporting projects in disadvantaged communities.

The three firms, VODA, Skills to Shine and SES, will invest the money into programmes which benefit the wider Tyneside community.

Newcastle-based VODA has been awarded £32,820 for its Fever Pitch project, which aims to support 160 young people in North Tyneside to develop enterprise skills with a view to increasing their confidence, employability and ambitions of setting up their own business.

The project will also create 15 new Work Placement opportunities for long-term unemployed young people and recruit 50 business mentors.

Tyneside-based Skills to Shine has been awarded £13,988 for its Enterprising Skills to Shine programme. This project will deliver project-based enterprise challenges to disadvantaged young people aged 14-19 in North Tyneside.

It will include the set-up of enterprise clubs in youth settings, supporting young people to gain enterprising skills and business knowledge through hands-on challenges. Young people will gain knowledge of the world of work with visits to industry and networking with business mentors.

Sunderland-based Sustainable Enterprise Strategies (SES) has been awarded £30,000 for its Prospecting for Enterprise programme, which will stimulate and create 40 new micro and community businesses within deprived communities across Sunderland and Newcastle by informal and formal enterprise learning.

Reaction

Jason Heywood, Regional Director for Corporate and Commercial Banking at NatWest, said: “We are delighted to be able to help 12 very diverse and worthy winners across North of England with a share of this funding.

“North Tyneside VODA, Skills to Shine and SES are helping people from a variety of background realise their ambitions. They are great programmes which benefit those directly involved as well as their wider community, and we wish them every success for the future.”

Lindsey Dunn, CEO of Skills to Shine, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded funding from the NatWest Skills and Opportunities Fund, the funding will make a huge difference to our organisation, allowing us to support young people in the North Tyneside area through world of work enterprise challenges.”

Roby Fry, volunteer centre manager at VODA, said: “We are delighted to be awarded funding from the Skills and Opportunity Fund to develop a range of exciting enterprise opportunities for young people across North Tyneside. We know that young people locally have huge potential in terms of their skills, passion and vision.”

Mark Heskett-Saddington director of SES “This is brilliant news and we look forward to working with RBS, their expertise and knowledge base will be of great value to local people and ourselves in starting new micro businesses via SES training programme Prospecting for Enterprise.”