Energy staff give youngsters a skills boost

Young people from across the North East have learned important life-skills with the support from employees at a Sunderland customer services centre.

The group of six young ambassadors from Whizz-Kidz, a national charity established to give every disabled child the ability to lead a fun and active childhood, took part in an employability workshop at EDF Energy in Sunderland.

Aged between 17 and 25, the youngsters worked with employees at the Doxford Park-based customer services centre to learn vital skills such as how to create a CV and interviewing techniques and took part in team exercises and also found out about the different career opportunities at EDF Energy.

The workshops were delivered by EDF Energy’s recruiter Anita Dunseith and HR graduate Christopher McGuigan.

Anita said: “It was an absolute delight to meet the ambassadors from Whizz-Kidz at the workshop.  

“We were also able to give them a real insight into our company so that they can see the kind of work we do and the many different careers in the customer services sector.

“We really hope that the employability skills that they learnt at the workshop are useful in the years to come.”

Anita and Christopher helped out with the workshops through EDF Energy’s Helping Hands volunteering programme, which allows all 1,800 employees at Doxford to take up to two days’ paid leave every year to work on a community project.

Whizz-Kidz Ambassador Rebecca, 19, from Durham said: “The Whizz-Kidz EDF Energy employability workshop was brilliant and gave a really interesting insight into working for EDF, who have a strong commitment to making the workplace accessible.

“It’s fantastic that that EDF Energy is supporting Whizz-Kidz by offering valuable work skills to young disabled people – the session definitely gave me more knowledge and confidence about what I want to do after I finish university.”