Change of strategy for charity, cannot handle feral children

Guess what happens? We are trying to train the apprentices to learn how to fix the PC’s and laptops which need refurbishment. This is for those kids who have dropped out of school, those who do not have a skill, those who might have criminal, drug or domestic violence histories. So many of our apprentices have been trained up sufficiently that many have setup their own businesses, some have gone forward and actually started doing a degree or doing a job for other firms. It is very good to read and love seeing the apprentices doing this.

But one has to remember what kind of people we are talking about, some these are not really the nice, listening, wanting to be educated people. Some examples of what the charity management has gone through. Have had their equipment stolen so many times. People steal the pc’s and laptops which are meant for terminally ill children or long term ill children. They sell this off to get drugs or beer. Abusing the staff. Breaking the law. Trashing the unit where teaching happens. Making prank calls to the office. It is a small charity and we do not have that many staff to handle it. All are working for very low pay or none. It is simply impossible to motivate the staff up in Nottingham to deal with these ferals. Our CEO is 80 years of age and is still extremely active, but surely one cannot accept this kind of behaviour. Totally unacceptable.

So we have, very regretfully, decided to wrap up our business in Nottingham and move down to London and the south east. We will be able to better control the charity and provide more management attention. We will also be able to work closely with the police and local authority to get them going in controlling these ferals.

I am deeply disappointed and very very upset. This was a very good thing which we were doing. We were busting our gut to improve the performance in a really depressed part of the country. Giving employment, hoping to improve the lives of a bunch of NEETs, getting equipment which can then be given to sick children. And so on and so forth. And now? Really really disappointed and sad that Nottingham will not be able to make use our of resources.

But hopefully we will do better in London and the South East.