Darwen Creates have won a tender to support a new scheme set up by Catch22’s Community Space Challenge. The pilot is giving young people from tough backgrounds the opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills, while at the same time generate earned income to help fund the running of the project for the benefit of their community.

Community Space Challenge is a national programme funded by the Big Lottery Fund that targets young people growing up in tough circumstances and involves them in creating cleaner, greener open spaces available for the whole community.

The micro-enterprise scheme is running four pilot projects with the support of the specialist skills of Darwen Creates providing training and advice to staff and young people to harness their entrepreneurial skills and secure on-going income streams.

The four pilots are:

• Birmingham – the creation of commercial allotment site with young people harnessing their growing skills into a business by supplying catering companies and running a farmers market stall. Aston Villa Football Club is a partner and is interested in purchasing all the produce young people grow at commercial rates.
• Altrincham - young people are harnessing their green space maintenance skills to establish a mini gardening business on the estate with the aim to secure some park maintenance contracts.
• Halton - young people are carrying out graffiti removal with the intention of them winning local council contracts.
• Chester - young people are being trained in maintenance skills such as fence repair, painting and open space maintenance with the aim to secure maintenance contracts across the estate from the local housing association. Income generated cover the cost of the young people’s training.

Speaking about the micro-enterprise scheme, national programme manager David Hopkins from Catch22 said “This is a very exciting and important project that gives young people the opportunity to take their green skills that step further and develop pathways into employment and business, while also providing clear value to their communities.”

Samantha, from the Birmingham project aged 16 said "It's fun and it is interesting. It's made me feel that I might want to work in a garden centre and make money through this enterprise in the future. I also like tidying up!"

Max Larcombe, Project Manager of Darwen Creates said “This is an exciting new project for us to work on. We’re looking forward to supporting the young people to create businesses and hope this may influence future projects to become more entrepreneurial.”

You can read more about the project and how it develops by going to the Darwen Creates blog.