The Last Mile has been set up as a multi-region DP and 4-country transnational partnership designed to help people who have demonstrated motivation and aptitude in the creative industries take the final steps to employment or viable freelance careers.
It is particularly focused on the barriers faced by a range of groups commonly under-represented in the sector: BME, women, disabled people, and those disadvantaged by location or economic, educational or social background.
Whilst the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) sector is developing in a dynamic fashion, many local communities are effectively excluded, even within major regeneration projects that have creative components.The partnership has addressed these issues, as well as developing new local procurement strategies designed to catalyse minority enterprise, and Internet e-commerce platforms to create new supply chains for creative businesses.
The partners are a mixture of urban, rural and sectoral concerns. The Lead Partner is Tribal CTAD Ltd, that provides technology support, with Demos and the Institute of Education, London University, providing background and longitudinal research respectively.
The Last Miles main strategies are:
- working with the industry to create and improve industry-standard training and qualifications;
- building local and regional capacity, tailored enterprise support and an innovative e-commerce platform to extend the market reach and opportunities for BME/Minority creatives;
- building empowerment and equalities outputs through an integrated monitoring, evaluation and research programme designed to capture and feed back beneficiary experiences, evidence of application of learning and improved capacity and to record impact on learning, jobs and increased market activity.
