Hundreds of young people from the West Midlands will gain access to new volunteering and employment opportunities as part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games thanks to over £700,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund.

The Games are expected to create up to 35,000 jobs and around 13,000 volunteering opportunities for local people.

The West Midlands Combined Authority has made a successful bid for National Lottery funding to support more than 800 young people across the region.

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest funder of community activity in the UK, will help the young people to learn new skills and secure jobs. The project will seek to engage with a minimum of 800 disadvantaged young people, to support them to access volunteering and employment opportunities generated by the Games.

The fund will be overseen by 20 community-based organisations working close to Games venues in Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell and Wolverhampton. The outreach activity will support local young people aged 18 to 30 who are unemployed or at risk of unemployment, and will particularly target those who live in priority wards.

National Lottery funding will give young people dedicated, personalised support to enable them to become Games time volunteers, as well as helping them to access one of the many thousands of roles created by the event. Support will continue beyond the Games to ensure that the young people can successfully build on their experience and secure long-term employment opportunities.

The WMCA has developed the programme as part of the Commonwealth Jobs and Skills Academy, which is driving skills and employment opportunities for local people, through the Games. Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, said:

“I’d like to thank The National Lottery Community Fund for enabling us to provide targeted support for young people and communities who have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

“This funding is vital for people who are out of work or worried about their future to gain access to work and volunteering opportunities from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

“Making sure that the jobs created by the Games go to local people is a key part of my jobs plan to help more than 100,000 residents into employment over the next two years, and is also critical to ensuring the Commonwealth Games is a Games for everyone.”

The confirmed community organisations providing the outreach include 'The Albion Foundation' in Sandwell and 'Ideal for All' across Sandwell and Dudley.

The Commonwealth Jobs and Skills Academy is an umbrella brand for all employment and skills programmes linked to the Games and was set up by the WMCA, Birmingham City Council, Birmingham 2022, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education, Jobcentre Plus and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Other partners include local authorities across the region, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and further education colleges.

For more information visit wmca.org.uk. The programme will start this summer and run to the end of next year.