Evening Standard praise for Paula and City Gateway
ESF Award winner Paula Evans
An interview with ESF Award winner Paula Evans has appeared in the London Evening Standard as part of the newspaper’s Ladder for London campaign, which aims to highlight the difficulties young people face finding work in the capital. 17 year-old Paula won the Outstanding Achiever of the Year Award at the London ESF/ERDF awards in 2011, and this website published a case study highlighting her achievements and those of others who have been helped by the City Gateway project in East London. In her interview with the Standard, Paula tells of her troubled background and how City Gateway has helped to transform her life; she now has a promising career working in HR for a Docklands firm.
The Evening Standard also has an interview with Eddie Stride, who in the last 10 years has transformed City Gateway into the award-winning social enterprise that it is today. Based in east London’s Tower Hamlets, City Gateway aims to engage disadvantaged young people and support them into apprenticeships and employment opportunities with companies in London’s City business sector. Paula Evans was a participant on the City Gateway’s pre-apprenticeship programme, an ESF project co-financed by the Skills Funding Agency which closed in July 2011. ESF is currently funding a programme at City Gateway that engages and supports disadvantaged and under represented groups into apprenticeships.