April's Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up with a social entrepreneurship focus
The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship (BCfE) welcomed students, graduates and entrepreneurs to April's Entrepreneurs Meet-up held at Blackburne House on Thursday 25 April.
April's Meet-up focused on social entrepreneurship with two local founders sharing their experiences of starting-up, running and scaling successful youth-based social enterprises that help educate and create opportunities for the younger generations across the Liverpool City Region.
The audience heard from Claire Cook who co-founded Employability Solutions, a registered independent school set up in 2012 as an alternative secondary education option to mainstream schools for young people who thrive in a smaller, more nurturing setting.
Claire always felt passionate about tackling social exclusion and dreamt about working for herself. Faced with redundancy from a local community organisation working with young people during the recession in 2011, she saw it as the push she needed to set up her own social enterprise.
Claire explained that following a successful pitch to the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) which offers hands-on help to social enterprise start-up businesses, she was offered funding to set up Employability Solutions which also presented her with lots networking opportunities that in turn helped her to expand her business.
The discussion then turned to other ways that social entrepreneurship has had an impact in the local community and created start-up opportunities.
Matt Houghton, Chief Executive and co-founder of HYPE (Helping Young People Everywhere), a Wirral-based charity that works predominantly with people under the age of twenty-four, talked about his journey to starting up HYPE.
Matt's interest in the youth-based sector came from his own early experiences of growing up on the Wirral with nothing much to do during the summer holidays.
In 2007 Matt had a simple idea to give local young people from deprived areas something fun and constructive to do during these breaks.
He went on to set up activities that helped young people to develop their interests, build confidence, kept them away from negative influences and encouraged them to follow their ambitions. Matt explained that the response, not to mention the demand, was overwhelming.
With few other schemes or social enterprises offering educational and fitness-based activities, Matt realised a need for something more consistent, which could offer year-round activities and initiatives to enrich the lives of young people and benefit whole communities. That was when HYPE Merseyside was born.
Matt commented that the success of HYPE has been down to a number of key factors, firstly tapping into the demand at a local level, followed by gaining the trust of the local community using local community centres as a base for activities and finally establishing a strong network of advocates and volunteers.
Following the presentations, the audience had the opportunity to enjoy lots of informal networking with FREE food and refreshments.
The Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up
The EMM is a University HEIF-funded initiative run by the BCfE in collaboration with six colleges and universities across the Liverpool City Region.
The EMM aims to provide a forum where entrepreneurs, students and graduates from across the North West can connect for networking opportunities.
During the events, students have the opportunity to hear invaluable first-hand insights from top company leaders and independent businesses, on their experiences of setting up businesses across wide-ranging sectors.