From today, Community Organisers will be starting the process of recruiting thirty 18 to 24 year olds as Trainee Community Organisers as part of the Government’s Kickstart Programme.
Community Organisers has been appointed as a Gateway for eight members of its National Academy of Community Organising to create these traineeship roles across the country.
The Kickstart scheme was launched by the Government last year to provide funding to create new job placements for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment.
Over the last year we have seen a significant rise in the number of people becoming involved in their local community through mutual aid networks and self-organised networks. These new roles that have been created across the Community Organisers network aims to build on this and support the new found activity to continue beyond the pandemic.
The traineeship will be 6 months long and as part of the scheme each trainee will undertake a national qualification in community organising. It is hoped that at the end of the traineeship the roles will be sustained via each of the local organisations or by supporting them to transition into other employment with the skills that they have gained.
Nicola Wallace-Dean of Starting Point Community Learning Partnership in Stockport, one of the organisations that will be part of this scheme, said, “Covid has shown us that there is an energy in communities to see change. As we move into a phase of recovery, we need to make sure we aren’t fixing people by doing things for them. The opportunity to recruit community organisers in our community couldn’t come at a better time. It’s providing us with an opportunity to really get out there and listen to people, build relationships and make change happen. Now is the time to build back braver and the Kickstarter programme will give us the opportunity to do this”.
