‘Foot in the Door’ Graduation

Today, our Foot in the Door cohort 2022 officially graduated our programme. Selma Turajlic and Lara Taylor from ATF were immensely proud to attend the Sharp Project offices in Manchester, hosted by our amazing partners at Sharp Futures, to hand out completion certificates. The team at Sharp Futures were wonderful from start to finish, so it was great to mark the end of the programme together. We were also able to let each of the cohort know they would be keeping their Macbooks, to help them with future job seeking and creativity.

Just before lunch, Lara and Divine were interviewed live on LBC radio about the Foundation’s work and the young people’s experiences. Despite only have a couple of hours notice, Divine was absolutely incredible. You can listen back here.

Later in the day we all made our way to the Printworks in Central Manchester, where a film the cohort had devised and created was playing out to the public. (A huge thanks to Ocean Outdoors for providing the media space). The FITD team loved seeing their faces up on the huge digital screens on the iconic building.

The celebrations were rounded off with drinks, dinner and even some karaoke. We felt a tinge of sadness at seeing the young people head off in their separate directions, but excited to see where life would take them all next. We knew the Andy Taylor Foundation would be right alongside them on that journey, through mentorship and other opportunities. We also had their trip down to London to look forward to so knew we would be seeing them all again soon.