Matt Brewer volunteered with Element Society five years ago – today he is the youth charity’s brand manager. Here he shares the ‘real impact’ of the growing Sheffield organisation
I was inspired to join Element Society after…
Doing some volunteering with them when I finished university five years ago. After being away from Sheffield for a while, I saw working with Element Society as an opportunity to help the city and work with like-minded people.
My favourite thing about the business is…
The breadth of work we do with the young people we help is massive and we’re starting to get big enough to see a real impact.
Our work covers so many areas from female empowerment to tackling knife crime, mental health to empowering young people with help in post-pandemic recovery.
The three words that best describe the business are…
Inspiring, empowering, person-centred.
Sheffield City Region is a great place to start a business because…
We’re fortunate enough to live in a city with great public transport and have a population of young people who are keen to be independent and form their own identity.
Now we are coming out the other side of the pandemic, I think we’ll see a great deal of excitement about anything new they can experience. It might just be a positive perfect moment for a business that can come in and capture that.
Sheffield City Region is a great place to grow a business because…
We’ve worked with so many graduates from the two universities over the past few years who are keen to stay in Sheffield to live and work. If young, talented, and clever people like those I’ve been fortunate enough to work with continue to stick around, who knows what could happen?
It’s really exciting – we’re looking forward to starting up a pizza company in the city centre run entirely by young people.
The best advice I ever got was…
Consider nerves as an expression of excitement. Being able to get yourself in a state of mind where you see being nervous as a positive has been really useful for me.
The worst advice I ever got was…
Stick to what you’re good at! I get it, you won’t go wrong – but you won’t grow either.
The organisations that have supported Element Society include…
Yorkshire Building Society has been very supportive with our office space, sponsorship from Reebok helped us run exciting workshops and gave us loads of new kit, and schools and colleges around the city help us work directly with young people. The flexibility of funders including Sheffield City Council and the National Lottery has been a huge factor in enabling us to grow.
The main challenges facing my industry/sector are…
We’ve been severely limited in the amount of face-to-face youth work we’ve been able to do over the past 15 months. Doing what’s right for young people will continue to guide us through challenging times.
We’re planning to set up a youth-only gym in our headquarters – free to use to get people back in the city centre – and we’d love to hear from anyone able to help with this!
In 5 years’ time I expect Element Society to…
Be the go-to place for young people in Sheffield who want support, whether that’s directly, or a referral to an appropriate service.
