Regional Winner in the Edge Awards

We are very excited to have been crowned the regional winner of the Edge Awards 2007, winning a prize of £5,000 for further investment into training and development of young people. After battling it out to win the small business category, we will now go through to the national finals to be held in November.

Edge is an independent foundation dedicated to raising the desirability and status of vocational and practical learning among 14 - 25 year olds of all levels of ability. Pachacuti has been involved in providing practical learning for young people for over a decade. We have close links with Derby University and have worked with many students and graduates from the fashion and textiles courses. Several of the placements have included trips to South America, funded by Pachacuti, which provides an incredible opportunity for the students to work with fair trade producers in order to see their designs being made (see photograph). So many fashion students want to work ethically but there are very few opportunities for training in the field of fair trade fashion. I hope that we can use this award money to expand our current training programme and ultimately to establish a fair trade apprenticeship scheme. We have already used some of the prize money to fund an 8 weeks training opportunity for a marketing graduate from Derby University who started working with us this week.

Andy Powell, CEO of Edge said, “Edge is delighted to award this prize to Pachacuti ... This is a great example of the good work we want to praise and reward.”

On 22 November I will be attending the awards ceremony in London, together with some of our young learners, to discover whether we have won the national award.