14 October 2022. Still gathering our thoughts from a truly eventful week.
From Shortlist to…Award!
Our team found out earlier that we had been shortlisted for the 2022 edition of the Innovation Awards, a prize founded by The Portsmouth News to spotlight groundbreaking businesses in and around Portsmouth. We were thrilled to be shortlisted, alongside an impressive host of entrepreneurs and trailblazers.
Today, October the 13th, we are honoured and thrilled to see Work Better Innovations making the morning headlines in The News as the winner of the Community Innovation Award 2022, joined by innovators from the fields of data science, environment, education and health, and many others.
Innovatively Making a Change in The Community
The Community Innovation Award, sponsored by START-UP Disruptors, asked: How businesses can innovatively make a social change to improve the wellbeing of their community?
Work Better Innovations demonstrated our unique model of pilot funding and commitment to public service. We help get grassroots projects off the ground. Through the consultancy work we do related to the goals of UN SDG 8 with business clients, we are able to provide bridge-funding to key social projects centred on the most vulnerable in our community. Through this channel, we have provided English-teaching educational materials to volunteer ESOL teachers with the Portsmouth City of Sanctuary, dedicating their own time to teaching English to refugees and asylum seekers.
Some of these projects include the Employment Support Workshop for Migrants, which is now running in its third edition. Many of our participants are highly skilled and resilient. They just need a little boost for them to find suitable employment in the UK. Through our bespoke workshops on CV and cover letter writing, UK job culture, and confidence building, we mentor them through this process.
Forward-thinking Research
We also demonstrated our commitment to progress by partnering with the University of Portsmouth and international think tanks on research and advocacy on international human rights and labour rights. This expertise feedbacks into the work we do with our clients, creating awareness and solutions for a sustainable economic growth and decent work for all.
As Ben White from BAE Systems, the headline sponsor for The News Innovation Awards 2022, said at the event:
‘The important thing is that innovation isn’t just about technology. It can be in the environment space, it can be in the community’.
…& Dare to Think Big!
What last night showed was that all achievements start with an idea, which, if tended to with dedication and resources, it can flourish into something special. Whether it is high-tech virtual reality tours on the Mary Rose, or vital training and employment programs for migrants, they all play a part in ‘acting as a beacon to others’ (in the words of Mark Waldron, Editor of The News at the awards event).
We are happy and grateful that our work is making an impact in people’s lives. Foremost, we thank our fantastic partners, City of Portsmouth College and Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) Solent, and to the participants and volunteers who take part in the community projects we support. To see our projects help people realise their dreams gives us a lot of hope.
Thank you. And let’s get through this winter together.
