Winchester Creatives Calls for Sponsors to Support Young Graduates Impacted by Pandemic

The first major sponsor has stepped forward to support the ‘Mind the Gap’ campaign by Winchester Creatives. The aim is to help provide training, apprenticeships and job opportunities for young Hampshire graduates hit by the pandemic and recession.

In making a £10,000 pledge, Kevin Chinn, Marketing Director for Casella Family Brands (Europe) Ltd., said, “We were very impressed with the professionalism and dedication of the crowdfunding campaign, and as a values-driven family run business which recognises the support that creatives offer us in order to help with our marketing plans, we wanted to do something to help. So, we have sponsored a Winchester Creatives apprentice which in turn will help us to help us identify new opportunities in the wine category and markets from a different and fresh perspective”.

Winchester Creatives, a not-for-profit social enterprise, now seek for 4 more businesses to help fund the scholarship programme which will provide opportunities to 5 recent graduates and give them 5 months of experience working on live challenges set by the sponsors.

More than £6,000 was raised in the ‘Mind the Gap’ summer crowdfunding effort to launch the Winchester Creatives’ campaign. Winchester City Council provided an initial £2,000 ‘Projects That Matter’ Grant. The money raised so far will provide some training and mentoring to creative students across Hampshire. Winchester Creatives was founded by Richard Coope and Dan Benham to help local graduates to get in and get on in the creative industry. These young people have seen their job prospects severely damaged by the pandemic and by the recession.

“COVID-19 has left a hole in the futures of Hampshire’s young creatives,” said Richard Coope, who also runs Brightful, a local creative agency in Winchester.

“According to BBC Panorama and The Resolution Foundation, the UK level of unemployment has risen sharply, leaving 1 million under-25s out of a job for the foreseeable future. We’re doing something proactive to change this. “Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far. We now need Winchester’s fine institutions and businesses to step-up and sponsor us to deliver the full social impact we hope to achieve. It’s about giving our local young people hope.”

Dan Benham added: ‘We’re delighted to have Casella Family Brands (Europe) Ltd. as a sponsor and for them to help our initiative. And clearly there is a lot of community support for our local initiative helping young creatives during this difficult time. We hope to make a practical difference to people’s lives and help them get into much-needed jobs.

“Very often creative students are required to work for free in order to gain experience, and during the pandemic and recession this just seems to add insult to injury. We hope Winchester Creatives can go some way towards breaking down this barrier to entry.”

Both Richard Coope and Dan Benham were proud to receive a ‘Local Hero Award 2020’ from The Mayor of Winchester, Patrick Cunningham and from Winchester City Council. In a letter to them both, The Mayor of Winchester wrote, “It is people like you who make our neighbourhoods feel a little safer and who make other’s lives a little bit more comfortable when they have needed it the most”.

Now the Winchester Creatives team aim to raise a further £40,000 in sponsorship. Overall, they seek five businesses, organisations or institutions (Casella Family Brands being the first) to sponsor five apprentices to the tune of a total £50,000. This will help provide these young creatives with a living wage for the five months from January to June 2021 so they can complete their apprenticeships.

Any businesses - large or small - interested in supporting the Winchester Creatives social enterprise are urged to contact Richard and Dan through the website: www.winchestercreatives.co.uk