Mosaic West Midlands has teamed up with SkillForce UK, a charity that works in partnership with schools, to help deliver the 2013/2014 Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge Competition.

SkillForce UK draws upon the skills of predominantly ex-Forces personnel, to inspire young people to succeed. Since 2000, SkillForce has changed the lives of 50,000 young people in the UK, engaging the hard-to-reach, developing their skills, and preparing them for the next steps in education, work or training.

Annalisa Lockett, West Midlands Lead Regional Manager explains the rationale for establishing the partnership: “Aside from the Royal Patronage shared by both organisations through HRH The Prince of Wales for Mosaic and HRH the Duke of Cambridge for SkillForce UK, our aims and objectives are very similar. Both organisations strive to enable young people to aspire to higher levels, to succeed and achieve their potential. Working in partnership with SkillForce UK has enabled the region to further expand the reach of the Enterprise Challenge Competition, resulting in new schools coming on board and enabling even more young people to take part in the Challenge.”

Head of Operations at SkillForce UK Simon Hall adds: “Having attended the End of Year Celebration at Aston University, and heard team Master Plan’s business pitch, we realised the positive contributions that young people can have when working alongside the business community. At SkillForce UK we want to inspire young people to succeed and if their aspirations are within business, then we will do all that we can to help those young people. Working in partnership with Mosaic allows us to deliver a well recognised programme to our young people.

Some of our cohorts are deemed hard to reach pupils and some have completely lost sight of their education. To show them that they can achieve will be proof to them and others that they can succeed.”

SkillForce UK Instructor Dean Reynolds reflects: “Engaging in the Enterprise Challenge Competition is new for us. Enterprise within business is something that we are not overly familiar with. However, Enterprise in other forms, well we have plenty of experience within the SkillForce UK West Midlands team! Speak to anyone from the Armed Forces who have been on Operational tours and they will tell you first-hand enterprise has been required at all stages. It will be interesting to put the two types together. This is a different approach with regards to keeping pupils engaged and we value the opportunity to add another string to our bow.”

A total of 22 schools across the region will be taking part in this years’ Challenge with over 700 students being supported by 70 mentors from a variety of businesses ranging from: Miller Construction, Jaguar Land Rover, Midland Heart, DLA Piper, Islamic Bank of Britain, SGH Martineau, Carillion, Hewlett Packard, NPower, Nestle, Lloyds, and Yorkshire Bank.

Find out more about Enterprise Challenge 2013/2014