Our Impact
It’s a “win-grin” situation
When young people succeed, communities flourish. We believe that no-one’s background should ever hold them back.
Our 2023/2024 numbers
(much of which was paid)
What this means
- Angel shown above enters Thomson Reuters on work experience. Within one year she is a full-fledged data engineer.
- Zak's story, from Catford to Cambridge.
- Four young black men who were 14 in 2009 and at risk of exclusion from school have graduated. Today, Gavin is SEO Manager at CMC Markets, Kofi is Vice President at HSBC Innovation Banking, Chad is a BAFTA-nominated Sound Fx Editor/Sound Designer, TJ is Relationship Manager at Transaction Network Services.
- Jadon recently started his Management Consultant apprenticeship at PwC. Find out how he got there.
Testimonials
From Catford to Cambridge
Cairo’s Success Story with Urban Synergy
Now I feel like I’m bringing value to the Team!
Defying Odds: Perrine’s journey from limited opportunities to Oxford University
An extraordinary leap: From South London to Howard University, aka ‘The Harvard of HBCUs,’ in the USA
What are the challenges?
One City, Two Worlds, 2021
One City, Two Worlds, 2021
Our Data
An Urban Synergy survey of 600 pupils at 14 London schools with higher-than-average rates of free school meals found:
- Some 49 per cent are interested in applying for financial jobs
- Among those self-identifying as Black, this rises to 64 per cent
- When they do work experience in a financial body, such as M&G, WTW, Legal & General, Dynamic Planner or the London Stock Exchange that figure jumps to over 90 per cent.
This means that young people in urban areas are keen to sidestep academic underachievement, long-term unemployment and the lure of crime, and go into the many advising, tech, marketing, HR, data analytic and other relatively well-paid roles
Our Research
Urban Synergy’s research has uncovered a dilemma for companies wishing to increase the number of people from ethnic minorities and disadvantaged backgrounds in their workforces and on their boards.
While many FTSE500 and large companies are making progress on this front, our white paper argues that they risk increasingly looking to graduates from elite schools to sit on their non-executive boards, rather than cultivating new executive Talent.
Academically Speaking
Since 2007, we’ve helped thousands of young people from schools with higher than average rates of free school meals make it to university.
Hear how one young man, aged 9, asked for our help. He just graduated with a first class degree from Cambridge University - citing his work experience via Urban Synergy at his interview.
See who we help
Our focus is on children at schools in urban areas that have pupils with higher than average levels of free meals. Where a young person has some special needs, we might consider their request.
We are ethnicity agnostic. See Harry's mentoring journey