Talent RISE Announces Date For 2024 Step Up Challenge

After raising a total of $200,000 over the last two years for young people with barriers to employment, Talent RISE has announced its annual 2024 Step Up Challenge date. Over 300 global employees from Talent and Talent RISE will be volunteering their time on September 6th. The initiative aimed at helping young people with challenges to finding employment enters its third year running.

The Talent RISE ‘Step Up Challenge’ will involve Talent and Talent RISE employees walking 20kms on to raise valuable funds for Talent RISE. In 2023, Talent RISE raised over AU$86,000 which went towards three life-changing initiatives for young people. In 2024, all funds raised will again go towards these three initiatives. These are:

• Entertech Program: Funding young people through work placements and training to acquire required skills and experience to provide a clear employment pathway for young people into tech roles.
• Paid Internship Scheme: Paid internships can be life-changing but are often impossible to secure for the young people we work with. This scheme will fund internships which provide critical experience to help young people gain confidence and secure employment.
• Equal Access Program: This program will support young people from refugee, asylum seeker, or Indigenous backgrounds by covering the cost of training (alongside RISE work readiness support) to provide a platform for future security.

In FY24, Talent RISE supported 554 young people with training and coaching, and placed 61 into meaningful employment.

Karen Graham, Talent RISE CEO ANZ said she is committed to helping young people find meaningful work. “We are incredibly humbled to have raised over $200,000 in the last two years of the Step Up Challenge and are extremely pleased we are able to do it all again for 2024. This generosity has allowed us to coach, mentor, train, and place hundreds of young people with barriers to employment. Like previous years, all of Talent RISE’s overhead costs are covered which means every cent that is raised goes directly to our cause.”

Nikita Vasiliev, a young refugee who is a recipient of the Equal Access Program, said, “Talent RISE has helped a lot with my journey and has had a really positive impact as I take my first steps towards my dream of becoming a nurse. It has been a relief to receive this scholarship and I am so grateful to the RISE team.”

Launched in 2014, Talent RISE is the charitable foundation of Talent – a leading global technology and digital recruitment specialist. To date, Talent RISE has engaged more than 5,000 young people through workshops and mentoring and has successfully placed over 500 into meaningful employment.

According to Stats NZ, in the March 2024 quarter, the seasonally adjusted proportion of people aged 15-24 years who were not in employment, education, or training (NEET) was 12.4%, up from 10.3% compared to March 2023.

Over the years, the Talent and Talent RISE global team has volunteered over 50,000 hours to give back to charities and community projects and are proud to add the ‘Step Up Challenge’ to the list.

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