The Stake
The Stake is a competition we’re doing with Channel 4 Education and Barclays, which gives young people the opportunity to pitch ideas for the chance to win a share of £100,000 and turn them into a reality…
The Stake meets the challenge of engaging young people on personal finance head on in an interactive, learn by doing, peer-to-peer led format. Throughout the competition thousands of young people will be pitching their ideas and completing various challenges along the way that help them get to grips with managing their money.
The top 20 ideas, as voted by the stakeholders on the site, will be reviewed by a panel of Channel 4 and Barclays judges and up to 6 winners will be awarded up to £20,000 prize funding for their ideas. The winners will be supported by Livity and Barclays mentors throughout the implementation of their projects.
The Stake is a non-traditional way of teaching finance or enterprise. It’s not about homework or complicated jargon. It’s about learning by doing, the process of peer-to-peer collaboration, sharing and supporting fresh ideas whilst helping to improve young people’s financial capability in the process.
Throughout all the work we do, we hold on to the belief that if you trust young people, they become trustworthy. If you give them responsibility, they become responsible. Our longest running project, Live Magazine, is a prime example of this, and so too is The Stake…
Watch The Stake TV advert here
SBTV party
Mira Jessani, Livity PR and party girl, gives us the low-down on the most talked about party this week…
Livity and SBTV are currently working together on some exciting projects and we were invited to celebrate the launch of the online broadcasting sensation’s brand spanking new website. The location was Nando’s restaurant in London Bridge and I turned up to find a lot of fashion savvy young ‘tings’ from the music, media and entertainment industries queuing up for a highly sought after wristband.
Once inside the packed venue and tucking into some tasty chicken the night turned into a bit of a Livity reunion as I continually bumped into some familiar faces who have come through our doors at some point, whether it be as an apprentice on Music 4 Good, a contributor on Live magazine, or to be interviewed as the cover star as Mr Jamal Edwards was earlier this year.
The reason we were all there was to celebrate a ma-hoo-sive achievement which all started out when a 17-year-old Jamal, aka SB, was given a video camera for Christmas. He filmed some foxes in his back garden and uploaded the video to YouTube. After getting a 12,000 hits he realised people would watch anything and decided to start filming his friends ‘spitting’ lyrics to the camera. This sky rocketed and he quickly gained a dedicated following and record companies started contacting him to feature their artists.
Jamal is still only 20 and has created an amazing brand – he’s filmed huge acts including Jessie J, Nicki Minaj and Bruno Mars, launched a clothing line, had over 50 million hits on his channel and negotiated with YouTube to get a slice of the £ pie when they place an advert on his page. He also supports upcoming UK talent such as Devlin, Yasemin and Ed Sheeran, all of whom I expect will be massive this time next year.
It was a brilliant night celebrating the success of UK ‘yoot’. It is amazing when you look at what Jamal and his team at SBTV have achieved – I’m sure there was hell of lot of hard work and long hours put in to get to this point, but it’s hard to imagine that they didn’t have a great time along the way!
All that’s left to say is ‘don’t watch me, watch SBTV!’
Live Magazine
Live is a quarterly magazine produced for young people by young people, with a little help from Livity. It’s run from our office by an amazing team of Livity mentors and young people. This video gives an idea about what it’s like to be part of the team:
If you’re a young person and you want to get involved email us – we’d love to hear from you.
Or email Andrea our Advertising Sales Manager if you represent a brand and want to find out how you can communicate with a youth audience.
It’s not all about the numbers
Written by Caroline Roake, Head of People at Livity
There were lots of interesting and opposing views expressed in response to a recent Guardian article about the rising NEET (not in employment, education or training) figures among young people.
Firstly, the article highlights how confusing the figures are – from pointing out that the DfE’s NEET stats always increase from the summer to the early autumn (should you really class someone as NEET who is between courses?), and you can always find a positive stat to outweigh (at least partially) any negative sounding one, e.g. steady increases in 16 to 18 year olds in education or training.
Having said that, everyone knows unemployment is a huge and scary issue at the moment, regardless of age, but among young people it seems more dire as they are ‘the future’.
One Guardian reader comments that the focus should be on improving career guidance services rather than pumping money into youth work efforts to combat the problem (i.e. prevention rather than cure) – we certainly see very few teenagers who feel well supported by the free careers guidance they are offered, and many who aren’t aware of the options available to them, so this seems like a good place to start. With money now going directly to schools instead of being controlled by local authorities, maybe this could happen?
Perhaps if there were improvements in this area more young people would see the benefit of pursuing a (relatively) stable, vocational career, rather than one where there is so much competition that it’s often only those who can afford to work for free until they get a foot in the door can succeed, which is common in many companies in the creative industries.
Stories such as this one about a 23 year old grad who pursued work experience in her area of interest (journalism) but then tried to get employment in something most would think requires relatively little training (retail), highlight this issue of employers wanting more experience than is fair to expect from this demographic.
Employers should not keep young people in the catch 22 situation of only considering those with experience or a degree. We know first-hand that there is amazing untapped energy and talent to be found in young people, including those who haven’t been to uni!
Apprenticeships can be a way to bridge this gap – offering employers a more cost-effective and supported pair of hands, and offering young people a way to learn on the job in roles that may not otherwise available to them, and gain a qualification that in many cases will increase their confidence and motivation. The issue is ensuring the qualification is nationally recognised, and that this becomes a sustainable means of employment for the young person rather than a one-off.
Encouraging entrepreneurialism is another way that some young people with a genuine flair for it can get out of (or not become a part of in the first place) the lack of jobs available right now.
On a positive note, there are always encouraging stories even in these difficult times (many that come straight from Livity!), and we should work together to change attitudes and find solutions, rather than dwelling on figures and which government to blame.
Why global tolerance?
Written by Scott Forbes, 21
Founder of Global Forum 40
‘Global Forum 40 – Sex Education for Young People Now!’
Scott Forbes is an amazing young man and an example of what you can do when you put your mind to it. He is a recent ‘Write Here, Write Now’ alumni and Global Changemaker, Scott is the founder of Global Forum 40, with the aim to educate young people around the world on the issues of sex education.
Scott recently wrote the below piece for Al Watan, they even translated it into Arabic!
In today’s society tolerance is a trait that many people fail to possess, yet the need for it is something of real importance to the world we’re currently living in, given the vast range of cultures and religions that surround us as citizens today. Tolerance is essential to the development of becoming a global citizen, having a greater understanding of what’s actually going on around us, which includes displaying a higher level of respect to one another.
Tolerance is something most people find hard to comprehend. There are those who feel it’s somewhat shallow, overused and frequently misused, that it’s built upon assumption and doesn’t allow for people to come to their own interpretation other than forcing acceptance. I would argue that this isn’t the case, that there is a place for tolerance on the world stage. You may not agree with a certain decision, an opinion or a thought but with a little tact you learn to tolerate it and get by.
Living in an era of multiculturalism tolerating is something we do best, it’s the stepping stone to generating a dialogue between different cultures, learning new ideas and concepts that we may dismiss at first. But with time we adapt to them and respect that way of living, we ask questions and challenge ideas, we develop our knowledge and we create a shared understanding of values.
It’s about bridging gaps between communities and traditions, respecting one another’s individual beliefs and building a greater global tolerance, that will one day lead us down the right path to answering many of the social injustices that plague our society today.