We want to use our newly refurbished office space to offer holistic business start-up/ employability support for mums and young women from low income families on the estates in North Chichester. We will use specialist female tutors/ mentors to provide beneficiaries with marketing support, business start-up advice, peer mentoring, life coaching/ stress and anxiety relief and CV support. We can offer volunteer experience with CCDT across a wide range of activities including marketing, community engagement, sales and event organisation. We will provide desk space, use of a laptop, internet/ phone access and stationery. We would work with 5 young women every 3 months over the year, offering support to a total of 20 women; follow up support would include telephone support for 3 months, drop-in support in our open-door office, and buddying up with organisations and events within our network.

What we'll deliver:

• 20 disadvantaged young women will have increased skills and confidence
• 20 young women will be better placed to be financially independent for life
• 10 young women will transition to employment, self-employment or volunteering

Why it's a great idea:

Graylingwell and the surrounding area is experiencing huge population growth through new mixed social (40%) and private housing developments and CCDT is working hard to avoid the area from becoming deprived. For many unemployed women from lower socio-economic groups, often challenged by ill health, low skills and confidence, and poor housing/ debt issues, the best route to independence is self-employment. A recent voluntary sector survey of long-term unemployed adults revealed c35% wanted to explore self-employment/business start-up but lacked the necessary support. In particular, for women wanting to return to work after having a family and gain some financial independence, flexible self-employment can be the best answer. Lack of skills and confidence play a large role in holding them back, and we want to ease that transition and provide the bespoke support needed in a friendly, accessible female-oriented environment.

Steps to get it done:

• We will work with local housing providers and other organisation to engage women who would benefit from our intervention
• We will begin with our first cohort of 5 women for a 3 month period
• We will continue on a rolling basis and engage a new cohort of women every 3 months for a 12 month period
• We will evaluate our project and use the findings to develop and improve and to leverage further funding.

We are uniquely placed to reach this set of beneficiaries, being a small female-led charity, with an open-door policy and remit to help disadvantaged members of our community through upskilling, confidence-building and opportunity provision. We believe we have the perfect environment and support available to make this a successful, value for money, high impact project. We are a core part of this community and will be available for drop in advice and support and signposting as the women move their plans forward following their engagement with the project. Once these women are engaged in the programme we can refer on to other CCDT services they can take advantage of; particularly for those with children, homework club, holiday club and youth club / youth ambassadors which will offer them further support and increase the chances of this project’s success. Our strong volunteer base will assist with peer support.