The Guinness Partnership, one of England’s largest housing associations, recently ran a week of free DIY and home maintenance training for women at City Skills, part of Salford City College Group. This follows the success of last year’s programme that took part during the week of International Women’s Day.
Completed during the first week of July, the award-winning training course had 14 female participants who are unemployed or on a low income, looking to learn basic DIY and maintenance skills, such as joinery, tiling, and plumbing.
Building on Guinness’s existing partnership with City Skills the college has donated the training space as part of their social value work.
The training is delivered by Frameworks Social Enterprise CIC and supported by partner organisations: Salix Homes, Edmundson Electrical, Jewson Partnership Solutions and Build Salford along with Guinness – with all partners involved in coordinating and planning the programme, helping fund the course and providing guest speakers.
As well as training, participants received mentoring and support and guidance to help them get into work, and the chance to gain a Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS).
Azam, a Guinness resident who participated in the programme, commented:
“As a single mum, I often feel nervous about letting people I don’t know into my home. I don’t want to rely on other people, so having these skills will help me in my life daily. Everything I’ve learned, I can do myself – it’s not unachievable! It has given me confidence and I’m also really glad to have made new friends.”
Eadaoin Kelly, Senior Community Partnership Manager at The Guinness Partnership said:
“We are thrilled to be supporting Salford residents to gain new practical skills and build confidence as part of our award-winning DIY skills programme. This is the second time we have delivered this training course in Salford and none of this would have been possible without our partners, who have been instrumental in making this another success. We are hugely grateful of their support.”
Also, funded by the training partners and donated by Jewson Partnership Solutions all attendees received a free toolbox – an amazing end-of-course gift.
