The Green Phone Initiative
So as a first for the ArmaFone Training Academy we’re heading back to school for a week.
Our head trainer, Callum has been on the South coast to introduce and train several groups of Year 10’s on the basics of the tech repair industry.
As part of a collaboration between Polygon School, Southampton and the The Green Influencer Scheme the students in Year 10 were given the opportunity to develop new skills that help them engage their friends and families and contribute to their local communities.
Tech repair and particularly screen replacement got the thumbs up from the students by way of a vote on what they would like to be trained on.
The bespoke training course that we created for this project covers an introduction to our industry sector, some history and theory of how the tech world works and what the job of repair technician entails.
In addition, each student group had the chance to get some [supervised] hands on experience of tech repair to really get a feel for handling devices, ESD precautions and using tools to gain some practical experience of the theory they have learned.
The course has been well received, with Gail Newman – CDT Lead, Polygon School commenting “The training is going very well, all the students are really enjoying the training that Callum is providing”.
Chris Everitt, MD at ArmaFone added “We’re really pleased to be part of this collaboration. It’s really good to see the children taking an interest in the effect our tech has on the natural environment and wanting to understand what can be done to reduce that impact.
Our industry suffers from not having an accredited education and training programme. We’re hoping this project will be a first step towards creating a recognised career path for school leavers wanting to enter our industry.
This generation need more than ever to understand the value of the ‘circular economy’, these students are taking that first ‘environment inspired’ step at an early age and it’s great to see.”
What is the Green Influencer Scheme?
The mission of the Green Influencer Scheme is to help young people create deep, lasting and meaningful connections with the natural environment. Through the scheme, young people will learn and develop new skills that help them engage their friends and families and contribute to their local communities. The scheme will help them to become Green Influencers –ambassadors for youth environmental action.
The Green Influencers Scheme was developed by The Ernest Cook Trust as a match-funded project with the #iwill Fund. The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to £50 million joint investment from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities.
What will Green Influencers do?
Young people will be at the forefront of designing, delivering and promoting their own environmental projects. As a youth social action scheme, this could include elements of volunteering, fundraising, campaigning or supporting peers. Projects can be anything they like, for example, creating a community garden. The Green Influencers will be supported by Green Mentors from SOS-UK helping them to make connections with local organisations and secure further funding from The Ernest Cook Trust in order to bring their social action projects to life.
The Green Influencers Scheme has been set up so that more young people can take part in action to support the environment and their local communities. We especially want to work with young people who haven’t previously had access to these sorts of opportunities.
The students selected decided to research the effects of the design and production of mobile phones, as they said that they tended to break a lot which cost the families a lot of money to replace. The phones are also usually thrown away which leads to chemicals leaking into the soil.
In the production of making phones there are a number of processes that are pollution the soil and air. As well as the air pollution from shipping phones across the world.
The students then had 6 sessions to look into ways that they could support the environment and put forward a proposal to learn to repair mobile phones and iPad, so that they could help their families and local community.
The proposal was accepted, and the school was very proud to set up a phone repair enterprise which the students have decided to call Green Phone.
Click on the link below to find out more:
https://ernestcooktrust.org.uk/what-we-do/green-influencers-scheme/
