What is the humanutopia BitC Aspire Nottingham conference?

David Richards – Head of Community, Business in the Community

Today, we’re really proud to be working with the humanutopia team, with really generous support from the Aspire initiative.

Ashreen Seethal – Coordinator for Aspire, the Education Partnership for Nottingham City

I’m so proud to be working with humanutopia today and Business in the Community, in bringing the program to Nottingham schools. We have 160 young people attending from 7 schools today, and aim is to build employ-ability skills and raise aspirations. And we’re doing that with business volunteers that have volunteered their time.

Amy Golby – Business Volunteer, Saint-Gobain

What today is about is to motivate them, to give them the confidence that clearly they’re lacking.

Paul Kawalec – Business Volunteer, Lloyds Bank

The thing that struck me most – certainly in the morning session, was that actually nothing’s changed from when I was at school. The same peer pressures are still there. The same pressures to conform, and not stand out and be different. And the great thing about the day was actually the opportunity of putting wise heads on young shoulders.

Student Opinions

Today’s helped me with my confidence. When I stood up, I felt my confidence growing stronger. And getting all the feedback from the business people saying how good I was, it built my confidence up.

It’s helped me think about other people’s confidence as well. Like I’m not one to always like take the mickey out of people, but there are some things that I do – yeah – that I did because other people are doing it. But education is one of the most important things to me. And that’s what I want for myself as well, to achieve more.

Keiron Turner – Careers and Progression Manager, The Bulwell Academy

And I have to say, for a school, it’s been phenomenal for us. We’ve really bought into the whole ethos of humanutopia, and what they can bring to our students.

Student Opinions

Other schools from Nottingham also go through like the same stuff that we go through. And interacting with them was like, “Oh, oh – so that happens to you too. I’m not alone.”

I thought it was really, really good. And like it’s almost really inspirational to everyone.

I want to change because my confidence needs to be building up. ‘Cause it not about your past which will affect your future. It’s yourself which will affect it.