Growing Ambitions ::: inspiring career talks for young people

Growing Ambitions, the UK-wide broker of volunteer career speakers in education, calls on working people and employers to get involved in volunteer career speaking to young people. The request comes in response to the latest figures on numbers of NEETs released by the government today showing that the number of young people ‘not in education employment or training’ has risen to 935,000.

The BBC reports that NEET numbers now stand at over 16% of young people in England meaning that nearly one in five young people who are capable of finding work are jobless.

Sally Davis is MD of Growing Ambitions. “These figures are alarming and represent a whole tranche of young people who have not had the input they need to make good choices. We call on employers, and working individuals, all over England and the rest of the UK to join us as volunteer career speakers. Despite the doom and gloom in the media there are career opportunities out there for those with a clear direction, focus and support. It all starts with careers information.”

Growing Ambitions volunteers get invited into schools, colleges and universities to speak about their jobs and careers for half-an-hour at a time and the initiative has added benefits for employers. The benefit of the scheme for volunteers is that they can opt in/opt out throughout their working lives, and for employers, it is that there is no red tape, no contract, no badgering phone calls.

Sally Davis again: “If every organisation put forward just a handful of volunteers, we could offer education everywhere a marvellous resource of speakers at the click of a mouse. For the feel good factor, there’s nothing better than helping other people. Here is the nation’s opportunity to impact young lives for good.”

For more information visit www.growingambitions.org or contact Sally Davis on Tel 023 9266 1600 or email through the Contact Us form on the website.

ENDS