The employment initiative set up by The Prince’s Trust provides long-term unemployed young people with valuable experience to help them find employment across the UK. At a celebration event today in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the scheme participants showcased their experiences of the programme to senior leaders at BAE Systems and The Prince’s Trust.
Over the two week placement the group experienced a taster of what life is like as a BAE Systems employee. During the placement, two participants successfully stripped back and rebuilt and tested a water pump used in the maintenance of infrastructure at Portsmouth Naval Base. As well as getting stuck into hands on work at the dockyard, they took part in a ship visit on board HMS Westminster where they had the chance to see how the Company works with the Royal Navy to maintain and upgrade the nation’s warships. One young person enjoyed his placement so much that he asked to work full time hours.
22-year-old Lloyd Daly from Havant said: “It’s always been my passion to work in the dockyard. Over the last two weeks I spent time working in the Waterfront Services division, involved in the undocking of the ship HMS Diamond. I assisted with ship hull inspections and clearing of the dock. I loved every single minute of it, it was best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I would recommend the scheme to anyone.”
Lloyd, like many of his scheme counterparts, has now submitted his application for the Portsmouth-based craft apprenticeship scheme at BAE Systems.
Dominic Carr, Commercial and Business Development Director for BAE Systems Maritime Services said: “BAE Systems is delighted to support the Movement to Work programme and it is great that we have been able to provide exciting work placements for the young people here today. We have received fantastic feedback on how they have performed with us and we would encourage them to apply for our Portsmouth based apprenticeships due to start in September.”
The Movement to Work programme aims to involve 100,000 young people across the UK by the end of the year. BAE Systems, one of the founding members of the scheme, is offering 100 work experience places across its UK sites through Movement to Work in in 2015, as part of a broader commitment to supporting the employability skills of young people. To find out more about Movement to Work see www.movementtowork.com
To find out more about apprenticeship opportunities in the Portsmouth region see www.baesystems.com/apprentices. The closing date for applications has been extended to 31 March 2015.
