HUNDREDS of young people from the region are set to gain access to new volunteering and employment opportunities as part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games – thanks to more than £700,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund.
The Games are expected to create up to 35,000 jobs and around 13,000 volunteering opportunities for local people.
The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has made a successful bid for National Lottery funding to support more than 800 young people across the region.
The project will seek to engage with disadvantaged young people aged 18 to 30 who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment, and will particularly target those who live in priority wards.
Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “This funding is vital for people who are out of work or worried about their future to gain access to work and volunteering opportunities from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“Making sure that the jobs created by the Games go to local people is a key part of my jobs plan to help more than 100,000 residents into employment over the next two years, and is also critical to ensuring the Commonwealth Games is a Games for everyone.”
The confirmed community organisations providing the outreach work include the Colebridge Trust of North Solihull, Compass Support of Castle Vale, the Living Well Consortium of Birmingham and Solihull, and the Positive Youth Foundation of Coventry.
Chet Parmar, chief executive of the Colebridge Trust, said: “We are delighted to be working with the WMCA on a project that directly links to the Commonwealth Games.
“Disadvantage comes in many forms and our wider work aims to tackle these inequalities; we advocate the ideas of inclusive growth and opportunities for all.”
For more information visit https://beta.wmca.org.uk/what-we-do/commonwealth-games-jobs-and-skills-academy.
The programme will start this summer and run to the end of next year.
