This summer, ADS is hosting our inaugural Charity Cycle, bringing together members from across the UK for an unforgettable six-day ride. Over the course of this event, riders will swap their laptops for lycra, embarking on a 478-mile journey from Scotland to Farnborough.
For our Charity Cycle, we’ve teamed up with five incredible charities and STEM academies to support underrepresented groups across the UK. These beneficiaries are vital in supporting our past, present, and future workforce – from empowering the next generation of industry leaders to supporting members of the Armed Forces community. Through our partnership, we aim to shine a spotlight on the invaluable work they do throughout our industry.
We reached out to our friends at Furness Education & Skills Partnership (FESP) to discuss more about their key priorities, challenges and support for the Charity Cycle…
Who is FESP?
FESP is a forward-thinking charity rooted in collaboration between education and industry, established to raise aspirations, develop skills, and improve life chances for young people across the Furness area. Since 2011, FESP has worked to bridge the gap between learning and employment – designing and delivering meaningful, experience-based programmes that help young people realise their potential and prepare for success in a rapidly evolving world.
FESP’s work is especially vital in Furness, an area that faces longstanding challenges around deprivation, low aspiration, and generational worklessness. Our programmes are designed to break this cycle – introducing young people to diverse career pathways, exposing them to positive role models, and developing the transferable skills needed for progression in life, learning and work.
Our goal is not to fulfil statutory requirements, but to fill the crucial skills gap that many young people face – especially those from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. FESP offers a progressive, hands-on approach that gives young people the confidence to aspire, the tools to succeed, and the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the future of their communities and the wider economy.
We don’t just prepare young people for the world – we help shape a future where they can thrive in it.
What are the biggest challenges your organisation faces right now?
We know that the projects and events we deliver have a lasting impact on young people (they often tell us!) but we do have three major challenges at the moment:
- Sustainable Funding: To ensure we are consistently offering a broad and high-quality portfolio of opportunities for young people, we need to manage funding carefully while continuing to increase involvement with schools.
- Employer’s Needs: Local SMEs are struggling to retain and recruit their own workforce. This means that we have had to adapt our project models so that they remain ‘doable’ for employers. The businesses are eager to work with us, but we are struggling with capacity to meet their business commitments.
- Long Term Impact: For our work to have a real impact on the life trajectory of young people we need to work with them, regularly, year-on-year and build the skills development experiences they need to be successful. Without this consistent communication it’s easy to lack aspiration or self-belief.
How does your work contribute to making the UK a better place?
Our work creates a workforce pipeline of confident and ambitious young people. It also enables schools to meet the Gatsby Benchmarks by enhancing careers and work experience opportunities. By bringing expertise to schools we help them go beyond the statutory curriculum and raise students’ awareness of local businesses, giving a real and motivational purpose for learning.
What does being a beneficiary of the ADS Charity Cycle 2025 mean to your organisation?
We feel immensely humbled to be a beneficiary charity. It is often hard to have a spotlight on your work when you live on a remote peninsula. The publicity potential for our young people and for our work in supporting them, is as valuable to us as any financial gains. We really are incredibly grateful!
What would you say to someone considering donating?
There are many young people in the UK who do not have an ambitious support system or who know how to achieve successful careers. Poverty or privilege is the luck of the draw – our work removes the luck factor. Every penny you donate will help to shape young lives in a very, investing in our future workforce.
If funding wasn’t a limitation, what would be your dream project or initiative?
A Furness Skills Hub – Skills Central – where all skills work in the area is brought together and aligned. Funding would be effectively targeted through gap analysis and a strategic skills approach for Barrow. A cradle to grave skills strategy.
What challenges do the communities you serve face, and how does your charity help?
Barrow has the highest average Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) score in Cumbria (2019), it ranks as the 31st most deprived area nationally. In Barrow’s central ward, 35.6% of children live in poverty, and the Key Stage 4 (GCSE) average point score per pupil is 209.7 (compared to the national average of 366.3).
The schools we work with fall within the country’s most deprived decile, facing not just economic hardship but additional barriers to education, such as poor health, domestic violence and housing instability.
Many young people lack self-belief, many live in hard to shift pockets of unemployment and have very little resilience or lack of experience. It is hard to aim high when you feel you are trying to achieve from a very low starting point. Our work helps our young people catch up and succeed in the long term.
What would you say to the cyclists taking on this challenge to support your charity?
THANK YOU! Many of the young people we work with face tremendous struggles every day. Knowing that you are prepared to face your own physical and mental struggles to complete this mammoth ride is such a testament to you. You will genuinely be helping to change the life chances of young people who have great potential but just need a helping hand to achieve. We really can’t thank you enough!
