Blogs

Your know your in trouble when you're reduced to an acronym... just ask any NEET BAMER N.E.E.T. = Young person Not in Education Employment or Training.           There are currently up to a million ‘NEETS’ in the UK aged under 25, and around 200,000 of those are between the ages of 16 and 18 (one in ten 16 – 18 year olds) Nearly half of them have an excuse and a note from their mum, they’re either travelling, volunteering, at her majesty’s le...

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It's been a weird and wonderful week with women at its heart.  On Tuesday I made a presentation to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills with Kresse Wesling the wonder woman who specializes in using waste materials to make lovely things.  Her current products include high-end Elvis & Kresse handbags, made from reclaimed fire brigade hoses and jute supermarket bags made from coffee sacks. On Wednesday I received the International Business Women award from SHE magazine ...

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I defected from the public sector in 1999 and started up Unique Coffee Bar because I thought there was a better way to work with young people than the Youth Service – although I have to say if the Youth Service hadn’t given me a secondment and kept my old job open for three years, Unique probably wouldn’t be here now. Unique was 100% grant reliant at first which I soon realised wouldn’t be sustainable. We created an Alternative Education course which we sold to local schools and that pu...

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Sometimes good fortune just falls in your lap and today it did in the form of Divine Chocolate. I was just about to start planning my first visit ‘ambassador’ to Lawnswood School, where I’ll be talking with business students about social enterprise,  when the Sunday Times dropped through the letter box.  One of my favourite features is ‘A Life in the Day’ and I duly turned to the back of the magazine to read about Comfort Kumeah a Fairtrade cocoa farmer from Ghana. She work...

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