Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship Participates in University of Liverpool Widening Participation Initiative
The University of Liverpool’s Widening Participation and Outreach (WPO) department ran its annual two-day immersive summer experience in June for the Widening Participation students it engages with across the year.
The WPO team brings local secondary school students ages 16-18 onto campus to participate in a range of academic sessions, in different Faculties, in addition to stopping in one of the university’s Halls of Residence to give them an insight into life at the University of Liverpool.
During the recent WPO visit, the Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship facilitated one of the two-hour interactive sessions held at the University of Liverpool Management School for 28 individuals that selected the session because of their interests in starting up their own businesses and entrepreneurship.
The Centre’s Entrepreneur in Residence, Richard Leighton, ran a session that supported students in groups to design and develop a social enterprise as well as present the concept to others in front of the class for questions and feedback.
The groups of secondary school students were set a challenge to select a specific group of individuals that are prone to homelessness, like ex-military, individuals addicted to drugs/alcohol or fleeing domestic abuse for example, and design initiatives that can support the individuals to overcome obstacles and barriers as well as provide training, work experience and employment support.
Before starting on the challenge Richard spoke to the group about his background as a Social Entrepreneur in Residence and Social Entrepreneur which included designing and creating a platform to redevelop unused public houses to provide move-on accommodation on the upper floors for specific groups of individuals in homeless hostels/shelters that also run social enterprises on the ground floor to provide on-site access to support and the skills required to live independently back in the community.
The winning group of students designed a social enterprise for ex-military personal struggling to reintegrate back into civilian life that provides daily structure and regular counselling for issues like PTSD as well as support for the individuals to retrain and repurpose the skills that they’ve gained in the military to gain new qualifications and employment in local industries.
Commenting on the success of the day, Richard said: "I am always really keen to participate in brilliant Widening Participation initiatives like this that the university runs to pass on skills, experience and expertise to others interested in entrepreneurship.
"The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship is also on a mission to create a positive impact in the local community via entrepreneurship like helping to support more school, college and university students and graduates in the Liverpool City Region to start up and create commercial and social impacts in a local, regional and national basis."