A team made up of employees from Bath-headquartered Wessex Water Group businesses has been recognised for its mentoring support for disadvantaged young people.
Through its partnership with charity Envision, which empowers young people from less-advantaged backgrounds to develop essential skills and confidence, the team mentored 21 individuals from two Bristol schools.
The young people identified an impactful youth social action project in their school, based on a topic they were passionate about.
The mentors supported them throughout the 12-week programme to design, develop and deliver the project with the aim of increasing their key skills, confidence and determination.
The young people then presented their ideas to a judging panel in a grand final, when the Wessex Water Group team was awarded Mentor Team of the Year, pictured.
The mentors were drawn from Wessex Water Group businesses, water2business, Pelican Business Services and GENeco.
Set up in 2016 with Bristol Water, Water2business offers specialist services to businesses ranging from water efficiency audits and expert account management to billing options and smart metering, while Pelican provides integrated business services in areas such as meter reading and billing to collection.
GENeco is Wessex Water’s renewable energy and recycling company best known for its poo-powered Bio-Bus.
Pelican contact centre team leader Samantha Wedlock, who was one of the mentors, said: “Young people from less-advantaged backgrounds are twice as likely to be out of work compared to their peers.
“By working with Envision, we hope to raise awareness of the importance of inclusion and reduce this statistic.
“The goal was focused on what impact we could have on these young adult’s lives and we were so proud to see how far the young people had come from our first session up to the final.
“We were very pleased to be named Mentor Team of the Year and we are exploring further opportunities to support Envision – and to help more young people in the future.”
Following the programmes, 92% of the mentors felt they had developed their own essential skills and 94% felt more connected to their team.
The Envision programme supports young people to develop key competencies and skills, leading to greater employability.
Through experiencing different working environments and mentors sharing their own experiences, all the young people demonstrated improvement in their communication and 85% demonstrated improvement in their teamwork.
Claverton Down-headquartered Wessex Water, which is owned by YTL Power International, part of the Malaysian conglomerate YTL, supplies water and sewage services to 2.8m customers across an area of 10,000 sq km stretching from Bath and Wiltshire to Bristol, Somerset, Dorset and parts of Gloucestershire.
