Making a difference

Common purpose legacy programme for young leaders

Legacy is a global campaign by Common Purpose, which invests in young people across the world. The programme challenges them to think 20−30 years ahead – to a significant anniversary for their city or country.

The legacy programme runs across the UK including London, Lancashire, Sunderland and Manchester, with plans to launch Cardiff by 2024. This is a great opportunity for our young people to go out into their communities to investigate issues, collaborate, hold difficult conversations and work up ideas. They then test, refine and present their idea to leaders in their city.

In April Common Purpose launched Sunderland60, which brought together a diverse group of leaders aged 18−25, from across Sunderland to address the question: "How do we transform Sunderland into a cleaner and greener place for all?” Two of the delegates on programme are from our Durham office.

Charlie Smail Age 20 Operational Support Officer

I wanted to do the programme because I thought it would be a great opportunity to try something new, as I haven’t done something like this before.

The programme was 3 days long and was all about how we can make Sunderland a cleaner and greener place, whilst also learning key aspects about becoming a young leader. We spent 1 day online on a zoom call getting to know each other and a further 2 days in person in Sunderland, developing key skills as well as doing a live presentation in front of key members of staff from various businesses across Sunderland. This included Susie Thompson Executive Director of Gentoo, Paul Watson Regional Director North East & Cumbria of EQUANS, and Marc Charlton and Jane Simmons from the Sunderland City Council. My idea for making Sunderland a cleaner and greener place, was a Recycling Reward Scheme. This included rewarding the people of Sunderland for collecting things like plastic bottles and cans etc, with things like food vouchers to help combat the current cost of living crisis as well as making Sunderland a cleaner and greener place.

I think the programme was a huge step forward for me because I have never done anything like this before. Attending the programme wasn’t just a big step forward for me but it was also getting up in front of a large crowd and presenting, as this is something I have always feared doing.

Leah Prow Age 21 Customer service executive

I Joined the Sunderland 60 programme as I wanted to develop my leadership skills and learn more about green initiatives in the area.

We learned that a huge issue for Sunderland is that currently 33% of all carbon emissions are the result of transport. In order to tackle this, the council are implementing several schemes that offer grants for the public to access electric vehicles and will be the first city to roll out a driverless bus. We then had the opportunity to go and see the site they were implementing with new cycle paths and Sunderland city councils new electric vehicles.

In my group we discussed the different companies we had spoken to and the schemes they had rolled out to work towards Sunderland’s 2040 goal. This included discussing the Sunderland City Council, Knights Frank, Gentoo and Sunderland Culture Programmes. In my team we concluded that there are already tonnes of solutions available to the public, they are just not very well known or used. Our solution was to use the days of volunteering offered by most employers in Sunderland to reach out to the community and notify them of ways they can save on emissions and money through schemes already in place.

Overall, the experience strengthened my leadership and public speaking skills, educated me further on green initiatives and allowed me to network and meet professionals who are having an impact on the green space in Sunderland.