Winner of 2024 Social Innovation Challenge: Building Futures Galloway
The 2024 Social Innovation Challenge winner is Building Futures Galloway, recognised for their work in “Breaking Barriers to Better Health and Wellbeing” with a £50,000 award. Located in Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway, Building Futures Galloway provide youth employability opportunities through heritage construction training for young people facing significant barriers to employment.
Introduction
Established in 2022, Building Futures Galloway is a social enterprise that addresses head-on critical rural issues such as the systemic youth unemployment and educational underachievement.
Their core mission is to address the deep-rooted issues of rural poverty and lack of opportunity, which are disproportionately affecting Whithorn’s young people. These issues have been shown to produce significant negative health and wellbeing outcomes, from deteriorating mental health to increased susceptibility to cardio-vascular diseases or long-term health conditions.
By focusing on individuals aged 16 and over, who are often struggling with additional challenges such as ADHD, deafness or social anxiety, they provide a pathway to skill acquisition and personal growth, essentially transforming the life-chances of their beneficiaries.
Making a difference
Building Futures Galloway’s impressive social impact is achieved by providing in-work training specifically targeted at young people without positive destinations. Their training covers heritage construction skills, such as masonry and carpentry, for which there are critical national shortages. Their approach is entirely person-centred, as no experience or qualifications are required for the young people to be considered for employment. Furthermore, to lift young people out of poverty, all employees are paid the Real Living Wage.
Additionally, each week taster training sessions are provided to around 15 school pupils from the local High School who struggle with classroom learning. These skills range from masonry to green wood furniture making. Participating pupils were reported by their teachers to have improved their self-confidence, literacy and numeracy, as well as being less at risk of exclusion or anti-social behaviour.
Building Futures Galloway’s approach is holistic: while they offer skills training, they also provide support for issues experienced outside the workplace. Through this approach, Building Futures Galloway have managed to support a group of young people over several years, who now form the core of a skilled heritage construction team and are well placed to become new leaders and trainers in the future.
Building a sustainable enterprise
The organisation is developing multiple income streams to ensure long-term sustainability. Whilst the main income stream comes from heritage renovation and repair services, provided to the commercial and third sectors, Building Futures Galloway also plans to generate revenue through paid training courses for young people seeking apprenticeships and heritage professionals. Additional income will also come from the sale of handcrafted green woodworking products and boat building courses, which are rare across the UK and in great demand.
Looking forward
Having won the Social Innovation Challenge £50,000 prize, Building Futures Galloway are now developing their next steps. Key aims over the next two years include achieving Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) accreditation, as well as awarding Professional Development Awards in masonry and Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs) in heritage boatbuilding to their first cohort by 2025.
Securing these accreditations will provide additional value to the young people they support, opening up further opportunities for their future. On top of this, the team will continue to recruit and support new cohorts of young people.
They will also work with partners including Historic Environment Scotland and The Ridge in Dunbar to develop a blueprint for a spoke and hub model to deliver masonry training at a community level, a model which if successful could address the specific aspects of rural deprivation and access and be replicable across the country.