The Berkeley Foundation at the Business Charity Awards

On Wednesday 20 April 2016, the Berkeley Foundation and The Change Foundation won the Charity Partnership (Property & Construction) Award at the 2016 Third sector Business Charity Awards for the Street Elite programme.

Street Elite is in it's fifth year and is a training for work programme that uses sport to inspire and motivate young people into employment, education or training (EET). It targets hard to reach young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) who are on the edge of gangs and crime. The programme is delivered through a successful partnership between the Change Foundation and the Berkeley Foundation. The Berkeley Foundation supports Street Elite by guaranteeing successful graduates of the programme work placements with Berkeley and also by providing financial investment.

The Change Foundation uses sports programmes to change the lives of disadvantaged young people across London and the UK. It acts as the delivery partner for Street Elite, providing the coaches, mentoring, qualifications, training locations and routes to employment.

The young people, recruited from local estates, are taken through a tailored 12 week training programme, helping them gain recognised qualifications and the personal skills and motivation to get their lives back on track. Street Elite coaches mentor the participants throughout with regular catch ups and constant communication via texts and calls. Halfway through the training, The Berkeley Foundation helps motivate the young men and women by visiting each training session with a senior director from Berkeley Group. They talk about the type of work available in construction and what life is like on a building site, inspiring the participants to sign up for work placements in the summer.

The programme culminates in a series of festivals that celebrate the achievements of the young people and their graduation of Street Elite. It gives them a chance to showcase the coaching skills they have learnt and give back to their local communities.

Street Elite has so far helped to provide training and support to 168 young adults, changing some of their lives completely. Over the past four years, nearly 80 per cent of participants successfully moved from NEET to EET after nine months.

"The team at The Change Foundation are thrilled with the award. It recognises the hard work that has and continues to go on supporting young people facing significant disadvantage to transform their lives and find employment."