13
May

Reaching out and supporting community is important to NP Architects

A few weeks back Fiona and Monika took part in career carousel at Chesterton Community College with the intention to inspire the younger generation into exploring architecture and the construction industry as a whole.

This year we welcomed the opportunity to talk to year 10 students about potential careers as they prepare to make one of the most difficult decisions in the further education journey, deciding what subjects at A level to study. To make it more fun Monika and Fiona decided to start the talk with an exercise orientated towards experience rather than a lot of digital slides. Pupils divided into groups of 4-5 and had a go at putting a structure together which would be stable enough to hold a marshmallow on top, known by some professionals as  the ‘Spaghetti and Marshmallow’ challenge.



At NP Architects we like putting in a great effort to reach out and give back to our local community, offering work experience opportunities to local school students interested in a career in Architecture and placements for students partway through their degrees.

In the architectural profession we are able to reach out to the local RIBA branch for support. They have revised their school outreach programme and more details can be found here. Another local volunteer based group called Form the Future helps young people move successfully from education into employment. However, the outreach does not have to be limited to the professional field and Monika who has been particularly active in mentoring in the local community shares some ideas:



  1. Volunteer an hour or two at local school career events.


  2. Tutor a pupil at your local school- contact school directly or sign up through platforms like Future First  or Inspiring the Future ;


  3. Mentor a young person and realise their innate potential and grow their confidence-one of the platforms that we discovered is One Million Mentors or if you are over 50 you can become a Grand Mentor ;


  4. Be a role model and inspire much younger generation through literacy  ;


  5. Offer internship placement for pupils and students as a practice.




We hope you are inspired by our experience and summary of potential resources.