Lionhearted Challenges – Essex school goes forward to national final
The Lionheart Challenge aims to get young people engaged in business and enterprise on a variety of topics.
Groups of school children are set challenges relating to a particular area of business or social enterprise, and the winners go forward to the regional, and then national finals. The focus of the South-East regional finals this year was developing products and concepts which will help prevent crime and protect particularly vulnerable people. Groups of school children from across the south east region presented work on products that would help to protect young women, missing people, homeless people, and victims of hate crime and racist abuse. As well as developing a concept, the finalist groups are also required to research the potential demand for the product, develop a business plan and a marketing strategy for the prototype, all of which will be presented to expert judges.
NICK ALSTON WITH PUPILS FROM A WEST LONDON SCHOOL 211014
Nick Alston, Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex, said: “It is fantastic to see so many young people engaged in problem solving in this way, and fascinating to hear some of the ideas coming through which demonstrate real innovation. All the young people I spoke to had real insight and empathy into the vulnerabilities so many in our society face and some of the possible solutions. I’m excited to see the results of all the projects and am certain that they will give us some really good ideas as to how we can develop products to help us do things better. I’m also delighted that the team from William De Ferrers school in South Woodham Ferrers were the Eastern Region winners and will now go forward to represent the whole of the Eastern Region at the National Finals next month.”
Finalist teams were supported by field experts, local police officers from the Metropolitan police in Hackney, and a number of schools officers. The event was formally opened by an address from Tom Winsor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, who spoke of the importance of crime prevention – it being the very first of the core principles developed by Sir Robert Peel when he founding the Metropolitan Police Service in 1829.
