Youth in Excellence CIC and BYA Awards

Youth in Excellence CIC, a UK social enterprise supported by

STEM training partner

Youth in Excellence CIC 145 – 157 St John Street

London EC1V 4PW

Company registered in England & Wales 08455955

Director, Kay Oldroyd +44 (0) 7908 258 681 kayoldroyd@youthinexcellence.com Director, Tony Harrison +44 (0) 7947 911 982 tonyharrison@youthinexcellence.com

t: +44 (0) 203 302 2570 e: info@youthinexcellence.com www.youthinexcellence.com

@yiexcellence YIExcellence

Introduction

The BYA Awards (Black Youth Achievements) have been created as a platform of excellence to

highlight the many achievements made by young people in our community that are typically

overlooked.

Now in our 6th year, we have to date celebrated the personal accomplishments of over 250 finalists

and shared this success with over 500,000 people worldwide through the event, newsletters, media

and social media.

Founder Kay Oldroyd and past winners 2012 Youngest award winner Joshua Beckford aged 7

About Us

The BYA Awards are powered by Youth in Excellence CIC, a social enterprise that works to inspire,

educate and empower young people through a range of services and initiatives.

We aim to:-

Create Opportunities - Providing options for new experiences and success.

Develop Characters - Building confident and independent individuals. Nurture Talent - Encouraging advancement of natural gifts and abilities. Invest in the Future - Uplifting today's generation to become tomorrow's leaders.

Our Success Story

BYA Awards 2009 – the premier ceremony was held at the Bernie Grants Arts Centre in

Tottenham, London.

Expecting just 300 guests we had over 450 people turn up, excited about an event that celebrated

black youth instead of constantly focusing on negative stories and images.

24 finalists had been shortlisted from over 500 entries; our first 3 entries were from Nigeria, Ghana

and the U.S! Unfortunately - only open to the UK - it demonstrated the interest that had been

generated through minimal marketing that year.

The evening was an overwhelming success and it set the standard for future years.

“Thank you for such a brilliant opportunity, and I am very thankful. You have raised my confidence a lot- in continuing in being a good successful person and in my performing. Next year I will definitely return to support the next nominees and hopefully in ten years time, when I am really successful, you will be able to invite me to present a BYA awards category!”

Ebony Babb - Choices category award winner 2009

“Pearson are proud to be one of the sponsors of the 2009 BYA Awards. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be part of the celebration. It was an absolute pleasure to meet all the nominees and winners on Saturday. I look forward to the 2010 awards. Well done, you did it!”

Abu Bundu-Kamara – Head of Equality and Diversity, Pearson Plc

Ebony Babb, winner 2009 Nathan Fox, winner 2009 Davina Kenyon-Blair, winner 2009

BYA Awards 2010 – this time, we hosted the awards at The Camden Centre in Euston,

London. Again, the venue was packed to a full capacity of 450 and the 2009 winners returned to

present the new 2010 winners with their awards creating the legacy that forms part of the BYA

vision. People travelled from all parts of the country to attend, with one guest arriving just hours

before from France especially for the awards.

BYA Awards 2011 – after a summer that shocked the nation, with young people vilified as

‘thugs’, ‘hooligans’ and ‘feral’ because of the rioting and unrest in major cities across the UK, the

BYA Awards were a welcome contrast to the negative atmosphere that had been cast across the

country.

Choosing Croydon as the host location

because it had suffered a great deal of

personal and business devastation, the BYA

Awards 2011 continued to spread the good

news about the positive actions of youth and

their achievements.

Reiss McCarthy winner 2011

BYA Awards 2012 – held at The Tabernacle in West London, the 4th annual BYA Awards had

the privilege of awarding 7 year old Joshua Beckford with his Education Award. One of the youngest

people ever to study at Oxford University, Joshua had the audience on their feet giving him a

standing ovation for over 10 minutes as Joshua’s father read out his son’s list of achievements.

Aside from Joshua, once again the evening was filled with celebrations of young people’s

accomplishments.

Standing ovations at The Tabernacle 2012 Joshua Beckford, winner 2012

We took a hiatus in 2013 and launched our digital magazine YouthPhoriaUK which

features some of the previous award winners from 2009 – 2012. (You can view the free magazine

here) and is part of the YouPhorMedia training programme

BYA Awards 2014 - The eagerly awaited return of the UK’s premier awards ceremony for

young people saw some of the UK’s largest corporations pledge their support and commitment to

ensuring that the 5th annual event was the best yet.

Headline sponsors Microsoft along with the British Council, Barnardo’s, Channel 4 and CISCO to

name a few, celebrated the continued outstanding achievements of young people from around the

country. From heads of diversity to CEO’s, the organisation’s leaders and key people of influence

attended BYA Awards and witnessed first-hand the incredible amount of talent that younger

generations had to offer.

Kay Oldroyd (centre) founder BYA Awards alongside Mike Sealy (centre) Global Advertising Business Operations,

Microsoft and the Microsoft BAME Group

"Firstly, congratulations on a very successful BYA. I personally found it awe-inspiring to listen to the stories and

achievements of our black youth. What a wealth of talent we have this country, I learnt so much from them and I left

feeling very motivated and on a high. It was a real pleasure and an honour to support the BYA this year in what was

the best event I have attended on behalf of Microsoft.” - Mike Sealy, Director, Global Advertising Business Operations,

Microsoft. BYA Awards 2014 Headline Sponsor

BYA Award Patrons ‘Rough Copy’ with 2014 BYA Award 2014 Business & Enterprise winner 11 year old Performing Arts winner Jordan Benjamin Jaan Field-Pellew of Jaan’s Jewellery

Why do we need the BYA Awards?

The BYA Awards provide a unique opportunity to challenge the negative stereotypes of young

people and provide an alternative narrative.

Issues such as educational exclusions where black boys are 4 times more likely to be excluded than

their white male counterpart and 168 times more if they have SEN (special educational needs) need

to be tackled and balanced out with stories of educational successes.

Chidi Amadi, Education award winner 2014

In the UK, the number of over 65s was predicted to increase from 8.5 million in 2000 to 12.3 million

by 2025 and 15 million in 2050. This will place growing pressures on the health and medical services

in particular. As a result, there will be an increasing demand for people with STEM (Science,

Technology, Engineering & Maths) skills (source Warwick Uni). The STEM field is currently under-

represented by black females. Our young women should be inspired and guided towards being

scientists, inventors, bio-chemists and technicians!

Toks Ogunsanya, STEM award winner 2014

19.2% of black males aged 16+ are unemployed compared to the national average of 8.5%. Business

ownership and entrepreneurialism within this group needs to be championed and encouraged to

prevent these figures from getting even higher.

Chukka Umunna, the shadow business secretary and Streatham MP for Streatham said in a speech

for Black History Month 2013 “If young black people can’t see people who look like them editing our

newspapers, sitting on the Supreme Court or running our great British companies, how can we give

them the hope that if they work hard, they can make it too?”

Mr Umunna, who some have tipped to become Britain’s first black prime minister, said role models

were vital to inspire young people to succeed. (source London Evening Standard)

The BYA Awards do exactly what he has called for. Promoting positive images of young people who

are achieving and have great aspirations who are also able to motivate and inspire others to do the

same.

What else do the BYA Awards do?

More than just a nice family event, the BYA Awards are under-pinned by personal and career

development opportunities. Our award finalists automatically become BYA Ambassadors and we

seek to offer various ways of supporting their needs and goals.

For example, we provided a public speaking training day for a group of the ambassadors which was

held at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

We also took a group to Legal & General’s head office in Surrey, where the company’s training and

development manager took them through a ‘Train the Trainer’ day.

And we have fun too! On a very cold day, we were invited to one of Crystal Palace FC’s home games

and received an on-pitch presentation of a football shirt signed by the whole team.

BYA Ambassadors at Pearson Plc Public speaking training at Islington Design Centre

Train the Trainer day at Legal & General On pitch presentation at Premiership football club

Crystal Palace FC

Business Opportunities

In a developing technological world where communications are becoming more accessible, the

presence of BYA as a global brand will only be a matter of time.

As a visionary operation, the benefits of engaging with our brand has societal and economical

benefits but primarily it is a conduit for information sharing and international inspiration that the

young people involved will benefit from by having global partners and associations. The world of

work and education is rapidly changing and our youth need to be prepared for that change at the

earliest opportunity to keep up with competition from other continents. As a stakeholder in the

development of this Caribbean project, using your local experience alongside a proven youth brand

the possibilities are endless.

The project will require investors, business partners and sponsors.

Why sponsor the BYA Awards?

Investment in our young people has never been more important. By sponsoring the BYA Awards you

(your company) would be demonstrating your commitment towards the nurturing and development

of some of the future leaders of the country.

What can the BYA Awards do for you?

By placing your brand before a young captive audience, you would attract new customers and

potentially a new, vibrant workforce. Between 400 – 500 people attend our UK events each year

with more engagement post-event via websites, media, social media and word of mouth reviews.

Our motto “There’s a success story within everyone”

@byamovement BYA www.bya-awards.com