The Fentro pathways
Fentro is not one course that expects every young person to fit the same mould. It is a connected set of experiences, skills and opportunities, shaped around interests, strengths and the realities young people live.
How the model connects
A young person may enter through a Discovery Day, join Fentro Futures, contribute to Fentro Voices or be connected directly to another suitable opportunity. These are pathways, not a conveyor belt.
The aim is to widen what feels possible, turn existing interests into visible skills and help each young person make a credible next move. Nobody should have to complete every element for their experience to count.
01
Explore what is out there
Hands-on introductions to real sectors, workplaces and people. Young people can look behind the obvious job titles, see how an industry works and discover roles they may never have known existed.
Discovery Days begin with curiosity. They are designed to spark questions and possibilities, not force a career decision in an afternoon.
02
Build practical evidence
A supported 16-week digital marketing and enterprise pathway built around real interests and real work. Young people develop practical, commercial and creative skills while producing evidence they can actually show an employer, college or customer.
The programme is being designed to build confidence through doing, not endless worksheets or training detached from the world outside.
03
Tell it as it is
Fentro Voices is a podcast and publication built around honest, long-form stories. Think thoughtful, Diary of a CEO-style conversations, the immediacy of a local radio discussion and a magazine that gives proper space to young people’s lives, challenges, ideas and enterprise.
Too often, young people are described through statistics, labels and assumptions made by affluent adults looking in from the outside. Fentro Voices lets the people living the reality speak for themselves, and lets audiences hear the context, not just the headline.
Episodes and features may explore personal journeys, barriers, mental health, education, work, creativity, community and youth-led businesses. Contributions will be handled with informed consent, safeguarding and genuine choices about identity and what is shared.
04
Turn progress into a next move
Connections into work, further learning, enterprise, mentoring and specialist local support. Fentro will work with existing organisations rather than pretending to be the answer to everything.
The right outcome will not look identical for everyone. Progress might be a job, a qualification, a business idea, renewed confidence or finally finding support that fits.
Why Fentro Voices matters
Fentro Voices is not a glossy case study or a stream of hardship stories packaged for sympathy. It is journalism, conversation and creative work that gives young people room to be complicated: to talk about what has happened, what they think, what they are building and what they want next.
The ambition is a recognisable local media platform, podcast, radio-style discussion and magazine-quality publication, that can challenge assumptions while celebrating youth enterprise and possibility.