Best Trade Stand award for NCC students in Young Enterprise challenge

Creative Arts students from New City College Tower Hamlets have won the Best Trade Stand award at Spitalfields Market in this year’s Young Enterprise Company of the Year competition.

Now the students will go on to the next stage of the challenge and will present to the judges at UBS Investment Bank at the end of April in order to compete for the Company of the Year 2022 title.

As part of the Young Enterprise initiative, the students – Jibril, Aisha, Naima, Adnan and Samirah – who are all studying Creative Arts at the Poplar campus, have started their own company called Starlight.

They create beautiful gifts to sell from recycled glass bottles. The bottles are transformed into magical lights using solar power and each bottle carries a caring message to promote well-being.  Starlight’s aim is to inspire, enlighten and make people feel good about themselves and the planet.

During March, as part of the Young Enterprise competition, they set up a stall at Spitalfields Market, along with 40 other businesses from colleges all over the south of the UK. They were interviewed and judged by several professionals, including the Executive Vice President at MasterCard, successful entrepreneurs, BAFTA winners, finance analysts and global asset managers, to name a few.

They were delighted to be announced as the winners of the Best Trade Stand award and are now looking forward to the next stage of the initiative where they will give a presentation to the judges at UBS.

Jorge Castillo-Rodriguez, Deputy Principal at Tower Hamlets campus, said: “This is brilliant work by these students and the supportive team from creative arts who have encouraged and guided them. Congratulations to them for winning this award and for their achievements so far in this competition. I wish them further success as their journey continues.”

The Young Enterprise Company Programme scheme provides a real-life learning opportunity that introduces young people aged 13-19 to the realities of the world of work. Young people work in teams to set up and run their own Young Enterprise student company under the guidance of a Business Volunteer.