Highways England student challenge turns into Wacky Races
A team of Highways England staff is supporting the Brimsham Green School students as part of a programme focused on turning the students’ fundraising ideas into a reality while completing personal challenges to develop their confidence, teamwork and resilience.
The students challenged staff to select a theme and build something creative from Lego in just four minutes at a fundraising event last week, as well as making a presentation on their charitable efforts to a group of Highways England staff.
Highways England mentor Charlotte Collinson said: “We have worked with the group of nine students to build a set of skills that will help them whatever they choose to do in future. As well as being satisfying to watch a shy group of young people build their confidence, it’s a great way to promote the careers on offer in highways England.
“We were really impressed with their ideas for fundraising – the Lego challenge was particularly popular with our design and engineering colleagues and we loved the wacky results. This was supported by a cake sale and a table football challenge.
“This is the second year Highways England has supported the project and as more staff become involved we hope to continue with more teams in future.”
Run by local youth charity Envision and backed by the Careers and Enterprise Company, the 12-week Community Apprentice programme sets young people the challenge of making a difference in the community.
The Brimsham Green team is in competition with other local schools and mentors are also in competition with those from other local businesses, as well as a second Highways England team based at Brunel House, Aztec West which is supporting Bradley Stoke Community School.
During May the project will culminate in a Boardroom challenge where students will present their achievements to a group of local business leaders and an overall winner will be announced.
Homelessness charity Caring in Bristol was chosen without hesitation by the students to benefit from their fundraising activities. Demonstrating a real commitment to helping homeless and vulnerable people through this charity which runs a range of projects to help people 365 days a year, the young people set a fundraising target of £400 plus donations. At the Highways England day they had already exceeded this, raising over £400, with more events to follow.
