Olympian launches jobs course for vulnerable teens

Kriss Akabusi says he hopes to help six young people taking part in the course to access work

A former Olympic athlete has launched a six-week employment programme for vulnerable teenagers to improve their skills and find work.

Kriss Akabusi delivered the first session of the course to six young people at The Place in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on Tuesday.

He said Project Mackenzie aimed to help the group, aged 16-19, improve their self-confidence and skills in a way that would will help them in the workplace.

Akabusi said: "When I look at [the young people], I want to say to them - and I haven't said it yet - where you are, I have been and where I am, you can go."

Akabusi won a silver medal as part of the 400m relay team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Akabusi went on to win two more Olympic bronze medals and gold at the European Championships.

Kriss Akabusi delivered the first lesson in a six-week course aimed at helping vulnerable young people to get into the workplace

Akabusi, who grew up in care, said he was working with young people from a looked-after background who may have a range of issues affecting their day-to-day living.

"They've got a six-week programme where at the end of that, hopefully if they're not in employment, they'll be in training.

"My project is called Project Mackenzie, after a guy who entered my life when I was 16, and he saw something in me that nobody else had seen; that I had a sporting ability.

"Hopefully I can show [the course students] that with your quirkiness, with your unique self, that's secreted in the right way - you can do powerful things."

Rachel Dunn wants the course to give young people "motivation and confidence"

Rachel Dunn, the course's leader from Norfolk County Council's adult education department, said she wanted to help "inspire" young people with their future prospects.

"We reach out to young people to support them to move on and progress and this course is really about their next step into what they want to do next and say 'Yeah, I can really do this now'."

Kriss Akabusi spent the first day of a six-week course helping young teenagers in Great Yarmouth

In order for the project to work, Akabusi said employers and society needed to be understanding to the challenges some people had to overcome.

"There needs to be consistency and the young person themselves has got some responsibility," he added.

"Even if they did the six weeks and walked away to their old habits... in three or four years' time, something [hopefully] rekindles what they did on this programme that takes them on the right trajectory."