JET - jobs education & training

There is statistical evidence that young Pakistani and Bangladeshi people in Britain suffer from the worst health, lowest qualifications, highest unemployment and worst living conditions. From our experience at JET and our knowledge of other local service providers we know that it is currently very difficult to engage young people to participate in and use the services we offer. The levels of underachievement in our area are the highest in the city. Certain headlines statistics are scary. Compared to the Derby City average crime is 29.1% higher, young offenders’ 62.4% higher, street robbery 177.6% higher and unemployment 86.5% higher. These numbers are symptomatic of a deprived community with limited aspirations, frustrated ambitions and unfulfilled potential.

Many of our beneficiaries are young Pakistani Muslims from the Arboretum/Normanton wards. We have specific programmes in which we work with unemployed young men and women by offering additional support in the areas of learning, job seeking, volunteering and mentoring. We seek to emphasise the importance of training and education, to improve their chances of gaining employment and to raise their aspirations in general. 

Our mentoring project will provide an effective way of involving local men and women to act as mentors and role models.  In this capacity they will support and engage local young people sensitively and encourage them to participate in community activities whilst developing their skills, confidence and self-esteem. 

As a Grass Roots BME led organisation we can take an honest approach in dealing with the barriers that local young people face. Our main target group will be between 16 - 25 years old, unemployed and economically inactive. We envisage helping these young people to make better choices in terms of thinking about their futures and improving the quality of their lives. Through the mentoring support sessions we will ensure that career choices are clearly thought through with action plans put in place to establish a pursuable programme.

There are cultural barriers to people accessing education and employment programmes. These include a lack of gender specific activities, lack of social skills, fear of failure, low aspirations, fear of ‘institutional training’ and also language barriers which suggest that many local people have skills which have never been accredited.  We have access to specific communities and work regularly with some of the most hard-to-reach client groups and therefore have a strong understanding of cultural, religious, mental health, gender and generational issues. We are experienced in offering placements to cater for people with language needs and/or learning difficulties and can accommodate the needs of younger people through mentoring and volunteering projects. For all these reasons we can understand the different social and economic pressures to which they may be subjected. The project will be well supported by all our well established project management and monitoring systems.

For more information about this contact us now!