On the 26th of September, the Community Involvement Unit launched their Training and Employability Network. The day started off with a presentation delivered by keynote speaker, David Bent, Honorary Research Associate from the UCL Institute of Global Prosperity.  He began his presentation by introducing a quote from Eric Hoffer: “In times of change, learners inherit the Earth…while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Through exploring this quote, he demonstrated the importance of continuously learning as doing so gives us the necessary knowledge, tools and skills needed to acclimatise to our ever-changing world. We cannot be stagnant as this will prevent us from serving our communities to the best of our abilities.

After this presentation, we broke into groups to discuss how we want the network to look like; we discussed aims, the services we would want to deliver and what our membership would look.

To conclude the day, we discussed what problems young people, in our organisations face, when trying to get a job. Some of the key things that came up were: mental health, refugee status and more. We collectively came up with possible solutions to help young people overcome such barriers. We also heard from a CV expert about how individuals can increase their chance of getting a job through making infographics. CV’s look more appealing and creative which attracts recruiters and employers.

If you would like to find out more information about this network, then please email: caroline.rouse@aston-mansfield.org.uk