We are so proud to be recognised as a Business Hero!
The British Chambers of Commerce launched a campaign earlier this month to recognise the incredible work that UK businesses are doing, in the most challenging of years. We are pleased to say that we have been nominated alongside some fantastic Welsh businesses.
This has been awarded to us and other businesses as we have demonstrated that we’ve gone the extra mile to support our local community during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Here is what we’ve been up to:
NPTC Group of Colleges has helped our local NHS by transforming Llandarcy Academy of Sport (part of NPTC Group of Colleges) into a fully equipped 340-bed field hospital in just over three weeks with wards set up in the sports hall, gym and barn. This was to offer support by providing much needed extra beds in addition to those created in Morriston, Singleton and Neath Port Talbot hospitals, as outpatient and other clinical sites were quickly redesigned to meet the challenges of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Staff at Llandarcy made use of the kitchen in Blasus, on the Neath College site, to prepare food for NHS staff and patients. We also provided a Coronavirus testing site at The Hafren Theatre, this is open to the public until December and we are incredibly proud to facilitate this provision and ensure we support the community by offering essential testing through the drive-through testing facility.
With the urgency on working and learning from home, we recognised we had to adapt to the ‘new normal’ therefore changed the way we delivered our training, upskilling and development to our clients and customers. We remained committed to helping businesses and individuals by offering a variety of business demand E-learning courses in different sectors. We are proud to be offering 78 brand new courses via e-learning during this period to support local businesses with varying training needs. We moved our Mental Health First Aid provision to online delivery due to increased concerns on the health and wellbeing of our clients in the challenging environment we were all facing.
We supported the vulnerable in our local community with over 700 students receiving vouchers towards meals in lieu of free school lunches.
Staff from the Pavilion at Llandarcy Academy of Sport were providing deliveries of Sunday lunches locally, production was then switched to Neath College too.
Our Newtown College Librarian Jacinta Jolly has gone above and beyond by providing a weekly book delivery in association with the Powys Libraries Service. Powys libraries have not been open since lockdown but have offered an ‘Order and Collect Service’. This allows customers to continue to access reading material. For those unable to collect their books, these are delivered by volunteers. Jacinta has been carrying out deliveries of library books within the local area by demand.