Delivered by the Social Enterprise Academy and supported by NEXUS Enfield, the programme held on 2 May at Dugdale Arts Centre offered young individuals a hands-on opportunity to run their own social enterprise, gaining invaluable real-life experience along the way.Cllr Abdul Abdullahi, Cabinet Member for Children's Services at Enfield Council, said: “Enfield Council is committed to nurturing the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit of young people through engagement in positive activities like this. We are proud to support an initiative which not only empowers young minds but also to drives positive change in our community.”Four schools in Enfield received high praise from the panel of ‘dragons’ consisting of Bobby Cato from Agile Tech Solutions, Gavin Cochrane from Cirrus Logic, James Archer from BGF Investment Management and Tim Sprinks and Louise Jackson from Enfield Council.The participating teams included Craft Green from Southgate School, Hydr8 from Highlands School, Randomiser from Freshsteps Independent School, and Diverse Cookbook from Laurel Park School.All were tasked to provide a solution to the environmental or social issues they had identified.
Freshsteps Independent School was crowned the winner and took home the prize of £100. Laurel Park School followed as the runners-up. Highlands School was recognised as the “Most Creative Pitch’ and Southgate School as ‘Community Champions’.
Maya Wenzel, Delivery Lead (England) at the Social Enterprise Academy, said: “One of my favourite parts of my job is being able to see the next generation of social entrepreneurs in action! I was blown away by the calibre of the initiatives presented at the Enfield Dragons’ Den – they all shared creative and thoughtful responses to local social and environmental issues and have a great future ahead of them.”
For more information on how to get involved in the Social Enterprise Schools programme, please visit: https://socialenterprise.academy/social-enterprise-schools-england/
The Social Enterprise Academy provides transformational learning and development programmes for people and organisations supporting social change. As a social enterprise, it supports people to develop themselves, their teams and their organisations to create sustainable businesses and have a greater social impact.
The Social Enterprise Schools programme was launched in Scotland in 2007 and gives young people a real-life experience of running a social enterprise to tackle a social or environmental issue they care.
Since September 2022, Social Enterprise Academy has been supporting young people in England and Wales, engaging 65 schools and over 1000 young people across 10 boroughs.
NEXUS is a community project run by the Secondary Behaviour Support Service within the London Borough of Enfield Council. The essence of the project is to be an impactful and innovative community-based response to the exclusion of young people from school.