Community support

Blue Sky are delighted to have been selected by arc to be one of the first two social enterprises to receive unique benefit including full, functional business engagement and in-depth support from the best social enterprise experts. A Business in the Community initiative, arc will use the excitement of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games to catalyse job creation and social and economic regeneration in some of the UK's most deprived boroughs by connecting business and social enterprises to create 1000 jobs by 2015.

Arc is supporting Blue Sky to move into East London and support ex-offenders from this region. Arc's Corporate Partners will provide support across a range of business functions including IT, marketing, and individual coaching and mentoring.

At the launch of the initiative, Blue Sky's Senior Operations Manager, Steve Finn, gave a very well received speech, illustrating our work, and the positive opportunity arc represents - "arc is going to be instrumental with us winning contracts in and around the Olympic boroughs. We are in West London, which is all very well, and we want to go to East London. We want to spread our wings. We want to touch more people, and arc will be key in helping us to help the ex-offenders of East London to find work." http://www.buildingbetterbusiness.org.uk/news/video-what-does-social-enterprise-mean-big-business

The aim of the project is to create a lasting social legacy for the Olympic host boroughs by stimulating the creation and growth of financially sustainable social enterprises. The Olympic host boroughs are Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest - amongst the most deprived in the country with high levels of unemployment and complex socio-economic issues.

Blue Sky will be supported by arc along with Social Enterprise UK, BitC's London 2012 partners BP and Deloitte and a collaboration of social enterprise organisations. This includes BT, Coca-Cola, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, GE, Procter & Gamble and Visa. BP and Deloitte are the main corporate partners of arc and are also the official partners of the Games. Arc's long-term ambition is to roll out the initiative nationally to other areas of deprivation in the UK once the concept has been proven in London.

The value of arc's support will also be shared with our partner organization, Groundwork London, who will benefit from access to grounds maintenance and other industry contractors working in the Olympic Park.

For more information, visit arc at www.buildingbetterbusiness.org.uk
England and Wales release 90,000 prisoners each year; 60% of prisoners re-offend within 2 years.            Re-offending costs England and Wales £12 billion each year.            Employment reduces re-offending by 33-50% but 75% of ex-offenders have no job on release.