Pathways to Employment at Blue Garage with Industry Unlocked
The means of production has been concentrated into very few hands. We’d like to share some of it back out.
Blue Garage is a 38,000 sq ft shared production hub in Lewisham. Engineers, designers and small manufacturers work here, and members run the six workshops themselves: wood, metal, textiles, electronics, screen printing and photography.
Industry Unlocked CIC is our associated not-for-profit. It opens the building to people who’d never otherwise get near the kit, the skills or the people in it. For this event, that means young people in and around Lewisham who are furthest from work: from low-income homes, neurodivergent or disabled, or with nobody in their life who works in making or enterprise.
WHAT WE WANT TO CHANGE
Fewer young people out of work, education or training. For every young person who comes through, we’re aiming for one of three things:
They start their own business, or
They get a job, in the building or beyond, or
They leave far more employable than they arrived
WHAT WE’VE DONE SO FAR
For the past two years we’ve been doing this in the building, mostly on goodwill.
Getting people into work
T Level work placements with Keystone and Christ the King Sixth Forms
Work placements with businesses in the building
Runner roles for young people who don’t know anyone in the industry
Helping people start businesses
Materialise, an accelerator for early-stage materials, textiles and hardware companies, backed by Lewisham Council
Blue Tuesdays, taking Lewisham residents from an idea to a product, and on into their own workspace
UAL Greenhouse bursaries, giving new graduates free access to the building
Opening the door
Tours for local schools, including a pilot day with Charles Darwin School
Tours for international students
Open Style Lab, where disabled people designed footwear alongside designers and engineers
Hands-on workshops where people try new fields, like bioengineering
We’ve shown it works. Now it needs proper funding so we can reach more young people.
Most of the cost is people. Opening a working building to young people takes trained staff, technicians, safeguarding and a lot of care. It has to be safe for them and fair to the businesses who work here.
There’s more to Blue Garage than shared machines. Our community is the magic. Being here means people see, hear and smell real making happening around them. They talk to founders from all sorts of backgrounds doing creative, inventive jobs they might never have known existed.
ON THE DAY
We’re bringing funders, foundations, livery companies, employers, the council and schools together for an afternoon. We’ll show you what we’ve done, what we could do, and what we want to do next. Then we’ll discuss ways to support it.
You’ll hear short pitches for four pathways:
Into work: learning by doing, with employers who sponsor places and hire at the end
Idea to Product: design, make and sell a real product, with applied AI throughout
Responsible Entrepreneur: build a business with social and environmental good designed in
Unlocking Future Engineers: hands-on engineering for students in local Lewisham schools
Round the tables, we’ll ask each of you:
Which pathway would you back?
For how many young people?
How? Funding places, sponsoring a workshop or a technician, offering placements, or hiring at the end
What would you want to see at the end?
OUR PROMISE
Every job at the end of a pathway pays at least the London Living Wage.
WHO SHOULD COME
Funders and foundations, livery companies, housing associations, employers, councils and public bodies, schools and colleges. And anyone who wants London’s young people to get a fair shot.
RUNNING ORDER
2:00 Arrive, coffee
2:15 Welcome. What we’ve done so far, and young people in their own words
2:45 The four pathways
3:15 Round the tables: which pathway would you back?
4:00 Drinks, nibbles and workshop tours
5:00 Close
Co-hosted with Philip Johnson and Nick Coutts (Sense IMS). More speakers to be announced.
GETTING HERE
A short walk from Lewisham or Ladywell stations, both direct from London Bridge. Tell us about any access needs when you register.
We’ll take photos on the day. Tell us if you’d rather not be in them.