July 16/23 - Social Startup Labs: Starting Businesses and Helping the Community in Brixton
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CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I am slightly suspicious of these people. I went to an "awards ceremony" because a lady friend of mine had been on one of their courses.
The awards were presented by some community Police guy, Rachel Heywood and Florence Nosegbe.
In each case a citation was read out saying something along the lines of "This person has shown the utmost compassion and creativity in engaging with their situation, relating to their peers, imaging for their future strategic situation etc etc"
It put me in mind of a cult like Scientology or NLP.
Or even CBT as practised at the Maudsley Hospital - although CBT is of course designed to relieve people from
depression, so useful.
What exactly IS it all about?? (Apart from spending council money of course)
evangineer
Member
"These people" all live locally or have local connections. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mamading Ceesay and I'm a co-founder of London Creative Labs. I live in Brixton myself and have been operating in Brixton for years working with local groups and projects, most notably Transition Town Brixton and the Brixton Pound. Feel free to ask around about me.
In fact, I believe I may have sat next to you at the awards ceremony and if so, I wish you had voiced any questions you had at the time. I'd have been happy to answer them, either at the time or over a cup of tea.
The awards ceremony was for participants who had completed our 12 week career coaching course called Skills Camps. The idea is that unemployed people learn career coaching skills that can be used for more effective job searches and career development. The skills can be used to help themselves, each other, their family, friends and other members of the community. I should note that not a single penny of council money was put into the Skills Camps. The same is currently true of the Social Startup Labs.
The statements were based on our observations of how the participants were positively engaging with the Skills Camp experience. You can find their own comments here: http://londoncreativelabs.com/testimonials/
My co-founder and I have a lot of history in personal development work. We have no connection or affiliation with any sort of religion or cult. If you knew me personally, you would understand that.
So what's it all about? I could cite a long winded explanation about the Nobel Prize winner Dr Muhammed Yunus and his organisation Grameen, but I'll spare you that. To cut to the chase, it's about doing what Job Centre Plus, the DWP and all those big firms receiving tax payers' money via the Work Programme aren't able to do in an outdated system where more jobs are being cut than created. It's about enabling the community itself to create local jobs especially but not exclusively for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The number one net creator of new jobs are organically grown startups, so we need a lot more local startups, especially ones by or involving people from the estates as they are the ones who need the jobs the most.
If you think there are better ways of producing the results we are looking for, I'm happy to speak to you. Likewise, I'm happy to answer any questions or hear any concerns you may have. I extend the same invitation to all the members of this forum. I'm happy to have a cup of tea or coffee with you in Brixton.
My email address is mamading@londoncreativelabs.com and my phone number is 07981 226 189
If you don't want to speak with me, there is a lot of information on our website which you might find helpful in order to understand who we are and what we do: http://londoncreativelabs.com
If you can spare the time, please come to Social Startup Labs and experience for yourself what we are doing as a participant rather than as an after the fact observer.
Natty Netts
New Member
Just wanted to say that having been unemployed and unable to get a job since April 2011, I enrolled on the London Creative Labs "Career Coaching" Course in the hope that this will help me find employment. I am now proud to say that I graduated from London Creative Labs in April 2012 and have since found employement as a freelance Management Consultant due to the Career Coaching Tools that we were all introduced to.
Since begining the course with London Creative Labs in January 2012, I was approached by a member of our business-community in Brixton to help her with her time management, which she uses to date. I also helped coach another person with her CV after meeting her at the Green Man Skills Zone whilst looking for way to gain employment.
Having graduated from London Creative Labs, I am in a better position to donate my time to help many of the unemployed in Brixton with their CVs, Achievements and more and this is something I practise on a weekly basis. I help people of all ages, ranging from 18 years to 60+ years.
I would suggest that you ask the current participants of the Career Workshops and some of the Graduates, just exactly what London Creative Labs is all about.
Regarding the Social Startup Labs, this is a great opportunity for the less fortunate people like myself (homeless; low income; ethnic background) to attend a Free Workshop on how to go about finding ways to starting up a business with little or no funds.
evangineer
Member
If you have a specific question, I will answer to the best of my ability.
editor
hiraethified
Please don't act like a disruptive arse on this thread. Thanks.
evangineer
Member
I'm interested to go along but can't do either dates.
That's a shame. We will report back online on what happened.
Also we hope to be able to do this again in the future. We've been doing similar stuff for years without any sort of funding. We're in this for the long haul as long as there are people benefitting from what we do and people continue to be interested.
Can you give me an idea of what sort of dates and times would work best for you, if we should do this again in the future.
evangineer
Member
If you can't make it to the Labs this time around, let's have a cup of tea/coffee in Brixton and have a chat. Email or text me if you want to do that. My contact details are in my previous post above.
Fair point. Sorry, was only ribbing.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I think I get the drift of what you and the organisation are trying to do - and it seems very good.
I am an unemployed manic depressive. Sometimes I come out with sweeping judgements based on a hunch rather that the full facts - at least when in my more flamboyant moments.
On the occasion when I attended one of your award ceremonies, the thing that really stuck in MY mind was how these long peons of praise echoed a food menu in Wetherspoons:
Oven chips and frozen peas from Iceland plc become tenderised Icelandic peas garnished with freshly minted farm-butter complemented by oven fresh crispy chips fried in organically UK-grown rape-seed oil
This exotic use of the English language by Wetherspoons and other low budget dining establishments strikes me as pretentious marketing hype.
As an eager student of the poet T.S. Eliot my reaction to the English language in highly attuned to nuance, and I felt at the time that the award ceremony strayed into the area of banality - apparently in the service of self-congratulation.
I DO agree that as human beings we are not taught to love ourselves enough - or at all. In fact people like Ian Duncan Smith seem to take the Catholic doctrine of original sin to absurd lengths. Current thinking suggests that unless people WORK they are feckless, morally delinquent and surplus to requirements.
To Ian Duncan Smith and his fellow materialists I would say this:
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (from the sermon on the Mount)
I am sorry if my initial comment was unduly negative and raised the spectre of Falun Gong. I would discuss further - as a free agent though - not to be engaged with as a prospective "client".
If you wanted to pursue - PM. A cup of tea at the Châteaux CH1 could be in prospect. A more neutral venue might be Barney's Cafe - but in that case YOU buy the tea - my ESA was cut off in April!
evangineer
Member
Apology accepted.
Since getting people to see their strengths and transferrable skills is at the core of Skills Camps, expressing our honest opinion on that after 12 weeks of working with them seems perfectly appropriate. Seeing and championing people's positive attributes is a core coaching skill and part of our practice.
I see everyone as a free agent, I don't engage people as "prospective clients" unless they explicitly express an interest in what we offer.
PM coming your way.
Since getting people to see their strengths and transferrable skills is at the core of Skills Camps, expressing our honest opinion on that after 12 weeks of working with them seems perfectly appropriate. Seeing and championing people's positive attributes is a core coaching skill and part of our practice.
I see everyone as a free agent, I don't engage people as "prospective clients" unless they explicitly express an interest in what we offer.
PM coming your way.
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