European Social Fund in England

Cornwall Works WISE awards 2010

This year’s Cornwall Works WISE Awards took place in Newquay on Friday 2 July. The winners range from a surfing Gulf War veteran to a crack team of graduates helping Cornwall businesses through the recession using new media and digital technologies - and an organisation that has set up a marine academy for young people.

Cornwall Works WISE Award Winners and presenters - 2010. Photo by James Ram at Apex

The 2010 Cornwall Works* WISE (Welfare to Work, Innovation, Skills and Employment) Awards celebration recognises excellence in employment and skills activity in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The awards also highlight the important role that European Social Fund investment (through the ESF Convergence Programme) is playing in employment, skills and training and innovation across the region.

This year’s Outstanding Achievement Award at the Cornwall Works WISE awards has been won by Pentreath – an organisation which offers training, work experience and employment opportunities for people in Cornwall who are recovering from mental ill health.

This is the first time in the three years that the Cornwall Works WISE Awards have taken place that an organisation rather than an individual has won the special award.

Carleen Kelemen, Director of the Convergence Partnership Office, who hosted the Awards event, said, “Congratulations to all today’s winners and a special congratulations to Pentreath. The organisation has been operating for two decades offering new opportunities to thousands of people in Cornwall. We use the term 'regeneration' in many ways, but the greatest path to continual regeneration is through the people of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Their success is our success. The Outstanding Achievement award is well deserved.”

Michelle Maslen, District Manager for Jobcentre Plus in Devon and Cornwall, said,  

“We started to work with Pentreath in 1999, through a pilot initiative. Our customer insight highlighted the need for additional support for unemployed people experiencing mental ill health.  Having Pentreath on board as a delivery partner opened up a new range of opportunities for our customers and built the knowledge of our people in terms of the barriers faced by this customer group.  Since then our partnership has gone from strength to strength. Our advisers and our customers have nothing but praise for the fantastic work that Pentreath does.”

The third Cornwall Works WISE awards ceremony was jointly organised by Jobcentre Plus, the Skills Funding Agency and the Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The awards’ keynote speakers were Wendy Violentano, Head of ESF Division and Andy Brelsford of Volunteer Cornwall.

Wendy said, “Many congratulations to all of the 2010 Cornwall Works WISE Award winners. Each and every one has a personal story which I have found inspiring and are all great examples of how investment in work and skills can change people’s lives. ESF Convergence is playing a key role in this…..

 “ESF Convergence, working across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, is supporting people into work, helping reduce inequality and create a fairer society and training people in work with the skills needed by businesses to compete in a modern and increasingly global economy.”

For further information: see www.convergencecornwall.com or contact Clare Morgan   (Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly) - Tel: 01872 241379/07973 813647 or email:  cmorgan@cornwall.gov.uk