TheEmployable has asked serial youth blogger Ruth Johnston to give us the rundown on the ‘Ready 4 Work’ campaign that is currently running under Channel 4’s online and television project, Battlefront.

The campaign seeks to give a voice to NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) aged 18-25 and on Monday she took part in T4 Battlefront: Ready 4 Work’s Walk 4 Work campaign. They marched to the Houses of Parliament to highlight that the Youth of the UK are not lazy and disenfranchised in working as we are sometimes led to believe. Checkout and support the Ready 4 Work team and all their hard work here: http://www.battlefront.co.uk/campaigners

Ruth has been blogging for a couple of years and is a recent Photography graduate from the University of Portsmouth. She is currently “employable” and is using her blog to promote her work, practice her writing and hoping her enthusiasm and pro action finds her a job. Couple of points for anyone reading this post. These are extracts from Ruth’s blog, that she has kindly let us post, and she is very proactive in wanting to find a job and I would encourage everyone to support her efforts by following her through her own blog http://intoruth.blogspot.com/ and also via her twitter account http://twitter.com/intoruth She is also a serial tweeter too!

“The Walk 4 Work part was an act to further demonstrate Ready 4 Work’s message, head campaigners Joseph and Hafsah want to make a dent in the 973,000 figure placed upon youth unemployment. It was a really interesting experience, learning about the work that goes into the production of a television programme, as well as hearing everybody’s different stories.

I think I might even be on telly, so that will be fun. My star-status is already on the rise (jk), with a headshot
 and quote in The Independent today. I think it’s a very important message though and I would love to do something similar again, standing nose-to-back with Charlie Simpson is just oh too exciting.

The march ended at the Houses of Parliament where Joseph and Hafsah went in to talk to the employment minister, Chris Grayling. Grayling was in full support of the campaign and has promised to get the Job Centre to  with Battlefront to create 1000 work placements. http://www.battlefront.co.uk/news/walk-work-ftw
I think that the whole day helped to make me feel as though not being the only one isn’t a negative thing, and I learnt that everyone hates the Job Centre, everyone. I think we were creating a lot of positive attention while walking on the streets as well so it’s quite exciting really and what’s been written today about the campaign only adds to the value of the message.

I also got a free bowler hat, t-shirt and pin out of it so if nothing else but the photos I’m sharing with you now,
 I will also have physical objects to always remember the day I Walked 4 Work.

Good luck to Ruth in searching for employment and lets get behind the enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated by the Ready 4 Work Campaign. 

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