I Can Make It is thrilled that Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), Andy Street, in his keynote speech at the inaugural National Social Value Conference, committed to providing job opportunities for people with disabilities using social value as the driver.
The conference was held in Birmingham on Tuesday 14th of November and attended by Leo Capella as a guest of Guy Battle, CEO of The Social Value Portal. Job creation is obviously the key pillar of I Can Make It’s approach, and we are extremely pleased to see it being adopted by a combined authority. Having met them in the past, we hope to work with Andy Street and his team to make sure that he can achieve WMCA’s aim. We also hope that other combined authorities will follow their lead in taking this, in our view essential, step to reducing the disability employment gap.
We are also excited to announce that on Tuesday 20th March 2018, a special one day event will be held at the conference suite of the Financial Times (FT) headquarters at Number One Southwark Bridge in London. The event, which has a working title of 'I Can Make a Pledge' will see employers make pledges to ringfence job opportunities for young people with disabilities and health conditions, make it a requirement for any contractors who provide services to them to do so, or both.
More details will be released as it becomes available and invitations will be sent out later in the year. So please do pledge and attend our event, which could create many job opportunities for young people with disabilities across England using positive action and social value. We will be providing regular updates as we head towards 'I Can Make a Pledge’. So, please hold the date and stay tuned!
We all know our Champions are a talented group of young people. As well as being an excellent Champion for I Can Make It, who will be meeting officials from Liverpool City Council later this month, Hannah Ross is an extremely accomplished songwriter and musician. Hannah recently released her debut album: 'What Are the Natural Forms'. ‘Fearing’ from the album was played on '6 Music Recommends‘ twice including yesterday (16th November), as well as on both Mary Anne Hobbs’ weekend shows. Congratulations Hannah on making such a brilliant start to your solo musical career and we’re looking forward to seeing, and listening to, what you do next!
Hannah also recently became a Project Worker for Greater Manchester Coalition for Disabled People. All in all, two major achievements in one month for a talented champion for the campaign!