Sprouting Seeds

Twenty-five years ago, in a small closed-down shop inHighbury, the idea of helping some people into workthrough their own bootstraps was tried out in some ofLondon’s poorest communities. It relied on the motivationand basic willingness to learn of people out of work and inneed. The missing ingredients were too often lack ofconnections and support, a serious skills deficit andshaken confidence. Helen Evans, with her partner, decidedto try and provide these missing ingredients. Over aquarter of a century, the enterprise grew into a convertedHackney paint factory with 50 businesses, ten trainingprogrammes specially tailored for people returning towork, and five estate-based advisory, volunteer andemployer-linked programmes.[...]