The Future Melting Pot’s journey began at the start of 2009.

The country was in recession and unemployment was on the rise, especially youth unemployment. The mood was generally one of doom and gloom and where-do-we-go-from-here.

In the middle of this, at a January event called Change for Success, the creativity and hope of a wide range of young people came shining through, demonstrating their passion for success and their concerns about the challenges they faced, both because of the economic climate and because of the barriers facing the young more generally.

From this, the idea of The Future Melting Pot began to form.

There was obviously a gap in the market – a hole needing to be filled by an organisation skilled and expert enough to be able to offer disadvantaged young people the support they needed, building their confidence and developing the skills we know they already have.

Consultations and focus groups with young people followed, and we started to get a greater idea of the sorts of services and help they wanted to support their business aspirations. There are a variety of agencies in existence to support businesses once they have developed to a certain point – Business Link and so on – but a lack of support for those who want to get into business, but don’t really know how to go about it.

This is the support The Future Melting Pot was created to provide.

In June 2009, we launched the organisation, initially called simply The Melting Pot. This gave our public backing to the cause we work with and publicised the issue more widely, grabbing the attention of other organisations, the media and, most importantly, the disadvantaged young people we aim to help through our work.

From there, things really started to take off.

We had our first board meeting in June of that year and began to develop partnerships and working relationships with other organisations in the West Midlands. Then, in October, we secured funding from Business Link to develop our capacity. This essentially made us market ready, so we could begin to really develop our services through working extensively with our target market.

We developed the organisation further, changed its name to The Future Melting Pot for legal reasons and recruited some volunteers to help deliver services and build capacity even further.

From the end of 2009, things have not stopped. We have developed our systems, procured more funds, developed fruitful and engaging partnerships with a variety of organisations, created a website, garnered more publicity, attended conferences and seminars and have even created links in Europe, taking TFMP to an international level.

In March 2010, we launched our pilot project – the Youth Rehearsal Programme. This was a training programme working with young unemployed people to develop their skills and open them up to alternative opportunities, primarily self-employment.

The YRP was a great success, helping 20 young people and we have since consolidated our work on the project into a training programme we can replicate elsewhere. Alongside the YRP, we also developed the Social Enterprise Heritage project, which received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Social Enterprise Heritage project launched in 2011 and has given young people the chance to take the lead on an important research project, investigating the history of social enterprise in Birmingham. Inspired by what they uncovered, the young people are now helping TFMP to become a workers’ cooperative.

Then, in August 2011, riots hit the UK. As a result of these events, TFMP set up the Outreach project. This project has given young people the chance to express their views about the riots. We have undertaken a survey of young people to find out what they think, and are running an Inquiry into the riots. We’re due to publish our findings in summer 2012.

It is, in short, all systems go.

Right from the start, the philosophy of The Future Melting Pot has always been about creating the services and opportunities that young people want as determined by them themselves, not just with them in mind. This will continue as we move forward on what has proved, so far, to be a very exciting journey.

If you want more information about us, or want to get involved with us in any way, please don’t hesitate to contact us.