We have today been
confirmed as a winner of a Housing Corporation Gold Award. The
award was presented by Minister for Housing, Caroline
Flint.
The award, for
Tackling Worklessness, comes in recognition of its highly
successful training and skills development projects, like Bradford
YouthBuild and Women into Construction.
Sir Duncan Michael, Chairman of the judging panel said,
"Congratulations to Accent Group for securing this coveted national
award for tackling worklessness.
"Their brilliant success in training people from local
communities to work in local construction projects in Bradford has
made them a worthy Gold Award winner."
Since it began in
Bradford in 1997, our YouthBuild scheme has delivered training
opportunities to 1,500 young people and helped them get 1,280
recognised qualifications. It has helped 20 new businesses set up
and given the young people taking part the skills to get 445
jobs.
We were
shortlisted earlier this year with 18 other hopefuls from an
original list of 70. A panel of judges visited the Bradford
YouthBuild project to see first hand what its work had meant for
the local community. The judges toured a number of sites and
listened to presentations and supporting messages from staff,
employers, funders, successful trainees and representatives of
Bradford Council and Bradford College.
As well as the
recognition the Housing Corporation Gold Awards bring, winners of
each category also receive £50,000 in prize money to help repeat
and share the good work that has been done.
Derek Long of the National Housing Federation said:
"The Bradford Youthbuild project has been a true
success story. It has helped hundreds of young people into training
and employment, making a huge difference to individual lives and
the wider community.
Accent's Gold Award exemplifies the massive impact housing
associations make. This achievement demonstrates that associations
operating in the North are providing a unique range of
neighbourhood services beyond affordable housing. This award is
recognition of the hard work and of everyone involved."
Chief Executive
Martin Kelly said: "Getting a Gold Award is the best
news for us, as it shows our vision in action and the
difference tackling worklessness can make on the stability and
sustainability of our communities. Being in work gives people the
opportunity to make choices on how and where they live and this
work demonstrates our commitment to helping them improve their
lives through training and employment
initiatives."
The Gold Award is our highest accolade to date, and our third award
in a list of recent successes. Last year, we won the
'Innovation and Progress, Diversity and Equality' category of the
Guardian's Public Service Awards, for providing work training to
under-represented groups in the construction industry, and took
overall top honours in the Academy for Sustainable Communities,
(ASC), Creating the Future Award for Excellence, after taking first
place in our entrance category 'Skills, training, learning and
workforce development.'
Gold
Award Website