LCF's Fashion Business School awarded Small Business Charter award
- Written byLondon College of Fashion
- Published date 01 April 2022
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LCF's Fashion Business School is delighted to announce that it has been awarded the Small Business Charter Award in recognition of its commitment to supporting small businesses, student entrepreneurship, and the local economy.
The panel were pleased by the school’s application, with the panel detailing how the Fashion Business School has exemplified the value provided to students and graduates; they spoke highly of the support they had received in starting and developing their business and freelance practices. Students were clearly provided with numerous opportunities to engage with the extensive entrepreneurial ecosystem that they have created at LCF.
In particular, LCF were rewarded on engagement with the local community through the ‘Making for Change’ initiative, which offers women in prison the opportunity to gain skills to enable them to seek employment upon leaving prison. The programme also helps to support local SMEs; the project provides a fully equipped manufacturing unit inside HMP Downview, giving women the opportunity to practice their skills on real-life projects, and start up SMEs the facility to have designs made up that they would otherwise struggle to afford. The combination of educational offering and making facilities has created a symbiotic development ecosystem between the prisoners and the SMEs.
“The awarding process is incredibly rigorous and required a huge amount of hard work and genuine collaboration of colleagues across LCF and UAL. Together, we were awarded 25 dimensions which ensured our 5-year accreditation. In addition, we were proud to be awarded two exemplars. This award demonstrates our commitment to supporting our students to develop their business ideas into scalable fashion SMEs. We will work as a member of this network to realise our aim to become the go-to source of expert advice for the education, training and mentoring of fashion SMEs. This award is timely as we look forward to our move to east London with its thriving fashion SME ecosystem in 2023” - Liz Gee, Interim Dean of the Fashion Business School
In addition to this, LCF demonstrated SME involvement through initiatives such as Poplar Works, the London Fashion Fund, The Trampery, the Greater London Authority and the wider Fashion District - all showcasing how LCF and the Fashion Business School are embedded in the local community.
The Small Business Charter Award is a national accreditation, assessed by small business leaders, to recognise business schools which demonstrate excellence in supporting small businesses, student enterprise, and the local economy. LCF's Fashion Business School will now hold the award for five years, with their initiatives Making for Change and Fashion District achieving exemplary status. There are now 55 business schools that hold the SBC Award in the UK and Ireland, and we are extremely proud to be one of them.
“We’d like to congratulate the Fashion Business School on their attainment of the Small Business Charter Award, given in recognition of their support for student entrepreneurship, small business and their local economy. We look forward to continuing to develop our relationship with them in the coming months, and watching as they continue to flourish.” - Anne Kiem OBE, Executive Director of the Small Business Charter, and Chief Executive of the Chartered Association of Business Schools
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