New Bristol programme launched to support disadvantaged young people into employment

The Mini GAP course from local youth organisation Grassroot Communities promises to provide 16-30-year-olds with life skills, action-based learning and pathways into education and employment.     

Running for 12 weeks on Mondays from January 2024, the free course is a smaller version of the year-long Grassroot Activators Programme, which Grassroot Communities offered for the first time in 2022.      

“It is Mini GAP because there are some young people we spoke to after doing the full year-long GAP programme that couldn’t commit to the full year,” explained Grassroot Communities’ founder and CEO, Ben Carpenter.   

“We started thinking about the idea of doing something that was shorter that would mean people potentially might get the same benefits from it.  

“It’s about supporting everyday people that have all the talent but sometimes don’t have the opportunities they deserve, it’s what all this is about - creating a pathway to those opportunities.”     

The course, split across two terms from January to the end of March, will cover leadership and community development in term one and community-based social action in term two. 

The young people who take part will also be allocated a mentor who supports them for two hours every other week, starting from December 2023 to the end of April 2024.   

The remit of the mentor is to support the young person to create a pathway to a future opportunity in education, employment or experience based on their passions and interests. 

Participants in the previous version of GAP have gone on to join the RAF, take up a cheffing apprenticeship, get onto a barbering course and start a degree.     

Two young people who went through the course - Brandon and Catherine - have also been employed by Grassroot Communities as apprentices to support the delivery of the new programme.   

Reflecting on his experience with GAP, Brandon, 21 from Knowle West, said: “The opportunity I got, I had my own podcast  out of it, now I’m working for them and I’ve become a better person from it.          

“I learnt how to be myself and found out I am. I made lifelong friends and memories that I will never forget.”       

Outside of GAP, Grassroot Communities delivers five detached youth work sessions in south Bristol every week, working in Knowle West, Hengrove, Hartcliffe and Withywood.  

Other community-based projects include Growing Streets Together, which uses creativity to bring young and old together.  

And Grassroot is just about to restart a youth-led boxing programme, which will be merging into a multi-sport programme.       

The organisation also intends to run the full GAP programme, alongside the condensed version, from September 2024.      

Anyone who is interested in signing up to Mini GAP should fill in the application form.