91Èȱ¬

Since January 2008, Lambeth College has been offering a unique course called the Skills Challenge programme that is targeted at teenagers between 16-18 years of age who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).

The aim is to enable young people to achieve employability skills to prepare them for the workplace, or for further education, and to build their self-confidence.

Over 13 weeks, the students will gain a First Aid certificate with the London Ambulance Service, work on their numeracy and literacy, create a CV, undertake a community project for a local organisation and benefit from work experience placements.

Team Leader Sarah Wilson

"In a very short space of time they are getting a tremendous amount out of this," says Team Leader Sarah Wilson, who oversees a group of around a dozen students.

"The alternative for a lot of these young people is to be doing nothing at all or things that aren't necessarily that positive," she says.

Talking about this generation

Teenagers are the biggest losers from the credit crisis: They will be paying off the nation's debt for the rest of their working lives.

Many have been failed by mainstream education and they might well feel that the media has it in for them. These students have every right to be hostile or disillusioned.

But, instead, they are unfailingly polite, articulate and engaging. They talk with enthusiasm about the course, about learning new things and, strikingly, with clear-eyed pragmatism about the long road ahead.

"We know it is not going to last one or two years; we know it is going to last probably another 10 years," says 16-year-old actor-hopeful Liam Guidera on the economic gloom.

At Lambeth College's Adare Centre

"This course is giving us more skills, so it will be easier for us to get a job."

Don't you feel cheated and angry that you are being saddled with this burden?

"No, not really," replies Elisa Gnomes, 18, who one day wants to work with children in the Palestinian territories.

"Things happen, what else can you say? That's something we can't control. If we could, we would obviously have things done differently! But we are the perturbed generation. We just have to work harder than generations before, that's all!"

Seeing the community with fresh eyes

The Skills Challenge course has strong parallels with programmes offered by the Prince's Trust – being a mixture of academic, vocational and community elements.

The students at Lambeth College had recently spent several days at West Norwood Library re-designing and re-vamping the new study area. The students chose the project themselves and had also elected to help the British 91Èȱ¬ in West Norwood, a care facility for terminally ill and severely disabled patients.

Men at work

The aim of the community projects says Sarah, is to open their eyes and make them feel a part of where they live.

"A lot of the time they didn't even know that these places existed. Yet they might have lived in this area for 16 years!"

Giving hope and courage

"We were searching for a project and to find a place that we could help," explains student Seun Boye, who is from Nigeria and who aspires to run his own entertainment company when he is older.

"We went for West Norwood Library and made some designs of motivating words so that when people are using the library, if they are feeling down, they can see these signs and pick a word out. It will give them more hope and courage to move on to face the challenges of life."

Working on West Norwood Library

Of their visit to the British 91Èȱ¬ where they plan to clear the sensory garden, Elisa says: "Knowing that we can do a little bit, but change a lot… It's comforting. We can do a garden and make sure that when they look out of their window they'll have something nice to look at."

Overcoming Stereotypes

The students speak with admiration of the patients they met at the British 91Èȱ¬, and it works both ways. As Sarah points out, the community projects introduce the young students to local people, and go some way to demolishing negative stereotypes about London's youth.

The students acknowledge that too many of their generation are making the wrong choices with devastating and deathly consequences. Equally, they say it is unfair to judge them based on how someone dresses or how they talk.

They stress, that it is all about making 'the right choices in life, which is hard sometimes, but it has got to be done.'

Stepping stones

It's fair to say that right now this group of students are making the right choice.

"There are groups of people who have a no idea of what they should be doing," says Elisa. "And then there are others, like us, who make a different choice – to have an education and to be something."