Expansion for job start scheme

The scheme hopes to provide training for 12 people

A mid Wales project set up to help disadvantaged young people by giving them skills to find a job has proved so successful it is about to expand.

The Siren scheme (Social Inclusion Reaching Employment Needs), based on the Ffrwdgrech industrial estate at Brecon provides three places for a six-month period for young people who had previously been unemployable.

Targeted at the long-term unemployed, places are also provided for people who have suffered from drug abuse and ex-offenders.

The project has been up and running for a year and has proved a success with most of the people trained by the company finding full-time work.

Our order book is full so our plans now are to develop the project by extending the number of available places from three to 12 Neil Carter, Siren

Siren make high quality tables and chairs and provides a good grounding in the craft of furniture making as well as giving the young people a work record.

And now, another factory at Wentwood, near Usk will be set up to provide a similar scheme.

High barriers

The company also aims to open another factory in Carmarthen during the next 12 months.

Plans to increase the number of places on the course at Brecon is being backed by the local MP.

Neil Carter, chairman of Siren, said: "Although mid-Wales is an area of low unemployment a significant number of young people find it difficult to find work because of the high barriers in their lives to get these jobs.

"The project gives young people the chance to come in and work every day and provide them with a work record which gives them a chance to get a job.

"Our order book is full so our plans now are to develop the project by extending the number of available places from three to 12."

The project could open a factory at Carmarthen

Two of the first batch of recruits have found full-time work since the scheme started.

The project, which liaises with the employment service, has been funded by Brecon Beacons National Park, European Money and the Prince's Trust, which pays for the schemes manager, Neil Hirst.

On a recent visit to Siren, Brecon and Radnorshire MP, Roger Williams was able to see at first hand the trainees developing their carpentry skills.

"It is projects like this that provide a beacon of hope for those young people for whom the world has become a hostile place of little or no opportunity," he said.

"These trainees were previously totally excluded from any chance of meaningful employment and had been excluded from the mainstream of society."