City Challenges are a programme of events providing students with the opportunity to engage with charities and social enterprises.
For our penultimate City Challenge of the academic year, we welcomed Hft to the Careers Service on 5 Tyndall Avenue.
About Hft
Hft is on a mission to change the lives of learning-disabled people for the better. So that they and their families can live the best life possible.
They provide personalised support for over 2,500 learning disabled people to create solutions for independent living and positive change in the social care sector.
Hft’s valued supporter donations, employment and advocacy ensures they don’t have to compromise on the quality of care provided to the learning-disabled adults in their services. However, the number of young people supporting Hft’s vital work is low in comparison to older age groups.
The Challenge
University of Bristol alumni, Hannah Vischer, came from Hft to explain this a little more. The students got to work coming up with ideas for the following key challenges:
1. How can Hft better engage students/young people in fundraising and sustain them as long-term supporters?
2. How can Hft best work with young people and social media to drive its policy agenda?
Ideas ranged from website changes, social media content advice and creating mini podcast interviews to creating an online store to sell items made by adults supported by Hft or regular exhibitions for students interested in working in the charity sector to participate in.
Outcomes
The two teams presented their ideas back to Hannah at the end of the afternoon. Here’s what Hannah had to say:
“As a Bristol alumni myself, I knew the value the City Challenges can have for students. Now that I work for the wonderful charity Hft, I really wanted to engage in the programme from the other end. The insights given by the students are incredibly valuable to Hft. As an organisation with little contact with younger generations, it was great to engage with the students and hear first-hand their recommendations for greater engagement with their age group. We will be taking their feedback on board and hopefully implementing much of it very soon! It was also a great opportunity to increase brand awareness of Hft amongst the group of students that were in attendance.”
Get involved!
You can find out more about our final City Challenges event of the year and other ways we can help you stand out to employers on the Careers Service website.