YOUNG PEOPLE OF COLOUR:
IDENTIFYING & ADDRESSING THEIR BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT

Latest Government figures for youth employment clearly show that there is a distinct disparity in young people (particularly male) who come from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds taking up employment in comparison to others from different heritage backgrounds.

WHAT IS BASE X DOING ABOUT THIS?

Here, at BASE X we have listened to many theories as to why this is and acknowledge that there are issues such as lack of aspiration in certain deprived communities do to cultural conditioned roles and how many young people from Communities of Colour lack the skills required to secure employment and the lure of crime.

In addition to this, we have spoken to many of our members and have started to work with partnerships such as Connected Futures, YFF, HYP, Army of Kindness and many others..

BASE X recognises that there is a clear correlation between the increase in the prison population of these groups of young men from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities and their barriers to employment.

Having spoken to many young people from these communities including graduates whom have still not secured employment we heard some horrendous accounts of clear 'systemic racism' within the Public and VCSE sectors where good applicants didn't even get shortlisted on many occasions.

This has a knock on effect on the younger generations within these deprived areas who think along the lines of 'What's the point!' and faced with quick earnings from crime or a stint in higher education that leaves you in severe debt and a long hard struggle to find employment.. Bad life decisions are often made.

BASE X is committed to developing new culturally effective ways in which to engage young people from Communities of Colour into fair employment processes that encourage employers and funders to not only become aware of the systemic racism that exists but to also work with us to enable real change to the system to happen.