Two Brixton schools were the joint winners when entrepreneur Levi Roots revisited Dragons’ Den in Lambeth town hall with more than 50 pupils from eight local schools who pitched for funding to back their social enterprises.
Other Dragons in the Den were Diana Nabagereka, general manager of Brixton Village and Market Row, Xochitl Benjamin, co-founder of Brixton Brewery, and Yvonne Field from the The Ubele Initiative, which builds sustainable communities through supporting Black and minority ethnic entrepreneurs.
Brixton’s Levi Roots and his fellow Dragons awarded shares of a £650 seed fund to the schools that pitched the best plans – showing that their ideas were sustainable, realistic and demonstrated passion about their social aims.
Pupils from St Helen’s catholic primary on Brixton Road won £100 of investment from their Dragons for their smoothies for the homeless idea. They were also offered a free pop-up stall in Brixton Village to experience trading for real.
South Bank Engineering University Technical College, based on Brixton Hill, came up with a unique idea to address sanitary poverty amongst young girls and also received £100.
The other six schools each received £75 investment and a lot of advice.
Social enterprise education programmes will continue in all Lambeth schools until April and further awards will follow.
The town hall event was coordinated by Lambeth Made. It’s a campaign founded and supported by Lambeth council, NHS Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust Charity to make Lambeth one of the best places in the world for children and young people to grow up. Lambeth Made worked in partnership with the Social Enterprise Academy.
The schools that took part were:
St Helen’s Catholic primary, Brixton
Immanuel and St Andrew C of E primary, Streatham
Michael Tippett College, Clapham Park
South Bank Engineering University Technical College, Brixton
Telferscot School Primary School, Balham
Elm Court School, Tulse Hill
Clapham Manor primary, Clapham
Crown Lane primary, Streatham
