An appointment with the Prince of Wales

In February 2011, Steve Grant, Corridor Manchester’s head of work force planning and skills and University of Manchester building attendant Hamed Khamis were invited to attend a special reception at Clarence House to celebrate ten years of the Business Action on Homelessness (BAOH) “ready to work programme” which is part of the Princes Trust group of charities.

Steve Grant, who is seconded to Corridor Manchester from his post as Assistant Director of HR at The University of Manchester said: “It was a great pleasure to meet the Prince of Wales; he was very interested in the work Corridor Manchester is doing to help tackle issues of worklessness and low skills levels especially in neighbouring communities. He also spoke at length to Hamed about his remarkable story.”

Since it began in 2001 BAOH has provided over 800 homeless people in the northwest with training, advice and support to get a job. Hamed fled the war in Somalia in 2000 and he spent ten years fighting to stay in the UK often sleeping rough and in squats in both Leeds and Manchester.

Hamed achieved refugee status in February last year, which meant he was able to work. He enrolled with the BAOH scheme in May 2010. The BOAH provided him with training and placed him on work experience with Marks and Spencer. After the two weeks placement he was successful in his application for a role as a building attendant at the University of Manchester through the Aspire programme it runs with Manchester Metropolitan University another Corridor partner.

Since 2008 Corridor Manchester has helped almost 1000 local people into either work, training or further education through its two main programmes, Pathfinder and Aspire, spearheaded by Steve Grant.

Working with Aspire, Corridor Manchester has established a pioneering new scheme to help local people into. The scheme started in November 2008 and engaged social and ethical recruitment agency Aspire (part of Work Solutions, a not for profit organisation) to operate it. Since then some 700 people have been placed into jobs on the Corridor. The programme aims to help people living local wards to access jobs at the major institutions on their doorstep. The universities provide Aspire with advance notice of job vacancies, which enables people registered with Aspire to be matched with jobs that are right for them. The jobs include roles in administration, hospitality and catering, IT, grounds and buildings maintenance.

Hamed Khamis shaking hands with the Prince of Wales at their meeting at Clarence House. To the left of Hamed is Darren Jepson, who also took part in the Ready for Work programme, Steve Grant is stood next to him