EMPLOYERS: London's Community Needs Your Digital Skills Work Experience!
Picture: ELATT staff celebrating in 2015 after receiving an outstanding Ofsted report for the first time.
This is a musical celebration of the Grade 1 Ofsted-rated connected learning community of students, staff and trustees at ELATT, an award-winning community college and charity based in Dalston, Hackney that offers unusual suspects across London an opportunity to fulfil their potential. This is also a call out to London's employers to help avoid a predicted digital skills shortage disaster by providing vital work experience to ELATT's digital skills graduates.
ELATT provides a safe environment and second chance for young people to complete their school education, teaches English and fosters social integration to refugees and other recent arrivals, and equips adults to pursue promising digital life careers through connected learning in the classroom (online since Covid-19 ) and vital work experience opportunities.
On 18 April, 2021 retiring chief constable of Merseyside Police, Andy Cooke, said: The best crime prevention is increased opportunity and reduced poverty. Asked what he would do if he had £5bn to cut crime, Cooke said he would put £1bn into law enforcement and £4bn into tackling poverty. The Hub suggests spending some of that money on community colleges like ELATT!
“The solution (to cutting crime) is building community cohesion. The solution is building the opportunities for young people and levelling up the playing field. It’s such an unequal playing field we have at the moment with job prospects, and with opportunities for the future.” - Andy Cooke, former chief constable of Merseyside Police
In 2015, ELATT received a Grade 1 Ofsted rating for the first time. Chief executive, Anthony Harmer, said: “Our outstanding result reflects the efforts and commitment of our staff and governors who work tirelessly to give people the support, knowledge and ability to find new opportunities for establishing brighter futures. Our staff have a consistent dedication to the success of our learners and our programmes are tailored to meet the educational needs of people from all walks of life."
Picture: The cover of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill released in1998, by Ruffhouse Records and Columbia Records.
Playlist: Side A (Ms. Lauryn Hill to Scott Garcia) opens with Lauryn Hill lamenting: 'And everytime I've tried to be; What someone else thought of me; So caught up, I was unable to achieve' and deciding 'To define my own destiny' on The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. The miseducation theme continues on The Smiths' The Headmaster Ritual and Pearl Jam's Education.
Tales of inner-city struggles, poverty, unemployment and under employment are laid bare on The Specials' Ghost Town, Devlin's Community Outcast, UB40's One in Ten, Simply Red's Money's Too Tight and Aloe Blacc's I Need A Dollar. The impact of lack of opportunity and not succeeding on romantic love is wryly told on Gwen Guthrie's Ain't Nothing Going on But The Rent, TLC's No Scrubs and more encouragingly Sam Cooke's (What A) Wonderful World.
And because everyone deserves a second chance, and the opportunities of life-long learning, hope arrives through Learning to Fly (Pink Floyd) via connected learning with the Stereo MC's Connected, PJ Harvey's The Community of Hope and Hall & Oates' Adult Education.
Finally, to remind us we are all one connected community, Scott Garcia bangs out drum and bass classic It's a London Thing .
Picture: Calling London's Employers - the iconic cover of The Clash's London Calling album released in 1979 on CBS.
Side B (Rachid King to London Community Gospel Choir) is a musical prospectus of the courses and opportunities on offer to London students at ELATT. Zairean Rachid King's Rumaliza (Get Education), Nitin Sawhney's Arabic-sounds Exile from his typically-thoughtful and timely 2021 album Immigrants, Bob Dylan's I Pity The Poor Immigrant from the superb 1967 John Wesley Harding album and The Low Behold's English As A Foreign Language showcase the support given to Londoners to learn English to socially integrate and to enter the job market.
Providing training for a digital employment life has been a founding principle of ELATT since its inception as the East London Advanced Technology Training college in the 80s. Kraftwerk's It's More Fun to Compute, Peter Garbriel's Games Without Frontiers and Empire of The Sun's Digital Life provide a soundtrack to this digital offering from an introduction to computing to skills in computer games and beyond.
And so to the call to arms: EMPLOYERS LONDON'S CALLING! As we all know training in the classroom will only take you so far, particularly if your CV doesn't exactly shout out a corporate background. That is why ELATT is always looking for employers willing and able to provide vital experience opportunities to its students. Many of ELATT's students are just looking for those first work-place opportunities to kickstart their careers after graduation.
Blackstreet, Dr Dre and Queen Pen call out: 'I like the way you work it!' on No Diggity and Dolly Parton cries 'working 9 to 5!'. The soaring vocals of the London Community Gospel Choir sing us out inspirationally on Let it Be.
If you are an employer and would like to talk to ELATT about work experience opportunities for its students, or other ways to support the charity, please contact CEO Anthony Harmer via the Supporters Link. Thank you!
Spotify Playlist
You can listen to The Hub's ELATT playlist by clicking on the link below.
Baron Armah-Kwantreng is the founder of The Hub Broadcasting, a presenter on Epsom Hospital Radio and a former chair of trustees at ELATT.