MORE than 200 job seekers have had their efforts to find employment or gain a qualification recognised at this year’s Ashton Community Trusts awards.
The Ashton Community Trust delivers employment services to the community in north Belfast through the Local Employment Intermediary Service (Lemis).
Thanks to funding from the Northern Ireland European Social Fund programme it also delivers three projects, the Progress to Employment project, the North Belfast Works project and the Women’s Training project.
Lemis is a community employment initiative designed to help the disadvantaged overcome personal barriers that may be preventing them from finding and keeping a job.
More than 4,000 people have availed of the service since it began in 2011.
Presenting the awards at the ceremony in Belfast Castle the Minister for Employment and Learning, Stephen Farry said: “Ashton’s activities, supported by the European Social Fund and the Lemis programme, are excellent examples of how we can combine new and innovative approaches alongside mainstream interventions in order to address disadvantage in a particular area — north Belfast in this case.
“Ashton has made a significant contribution to the success of the Lemis community employment initiative. During the period April 2011 to February 2013, 26% of Ashton’s clients were helped to find permanent employment.”
The minister continued: “These results are very encouraging and a testimony to the excellent work of the Ashton mentors working on the ground out in the community.”
The participants were presented with an award for achieving either a qualification or securing employment over the past year. Employer and training awards were also presented on the day.
Meanwhile, Henderson Foodservice, part of the family-owned Henderson Group is celebrating recently receiving Investors in People (IiP) accreditation by launching a recruitment drive for new sales staff in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Five sales-reps have already been appointed so far this year, in addition to the ten sales staff, reps and telesales recruits appointed in 2012.
New employees to Henderson Foodservice will avail of the company’s extensive professional sales training development programme within the company to ensure excellent customer relations are established and maintained. Participation in sales training and development programmes, including customer relationship training, will further enhance the expertise of the new recruits.