Building Heroes Crawley: ‘Opening veterans' minds to the potential opportunities available in the construction industry is what we are about’

Established in 2014, Building Heroes is dedicated to service leavers, veterans, reservists and military families. The charity provides training and employment support for ex-servicemen and women that want a new career in construction, by equipping individuals with a broad range of trade skills and then connecting them with a network of employers.

The charity’s aim is to provide ex-service members with the skills and knowledge to get them into the construction industry.

Reintegrating into civilian life can be difficult for people from the Armed Forces because a lot of the skills that they are taught aren’t always easily transferable. However, Building Heroes aim to get the veterans to realise their potential and get them a long-lasting career.

Mr Williams, said: “Building Heroes was set up in response to a request from the OC at Headley Court. Building Heroes was the original idea of my brother-in-law who was a construction tutor at Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for disabled people in Leatherhead and he was working with disadvantaged young people.

“He was taking those young people to Headley Court, the defence rehabilitation centre and building raised bed planters for wheelchair users. He saw the opportunity to provide his training services to the injured and disabled veterans. The OC at Headley said there is no clear pathway for veterans to get into the construction industry.

“The front door to the construction industry is usually apprenticeships for 16 to 20 year old school leavers. How to get into the construction industry became a puzzle for veterans and it was from this that we came up with a fast track programme that could get service leaders over the first hurdle and introduce them to construction employers.

“Crawley is our latest base but we have generally been Sussex-based our entire times since 2014, when we first formed as a charity. As we have grown to the size we are, we need some sort of formal office space and we now have a head office in Crawley. We have 15 centres around the country.

“The transition between service and civilian life is the real challenge. If you have a technical skill in the Armed forces like signals, logistics, electrical and mechanical engineering, you have immediately transferable skills to take into civvy street. If you are an infantry soldier for example, then those skills aren’t so easily transferable in civilian life. What we do is focus on the transferable skills.

“Members of the Armed forces are typically resilient, extremely reliable, their time keeping is impeccable and have the ability to adapt and overcome. No matter the problem you give them, they will figure a way of accomplishing it. Once we get the veterans to understand what their transferable skills are, we help them to try and find that pathway into their next career.

“In its simple terms, we actually deliver a trades skills programme which is a multi-skill programme that includes brickwork, blockwork, plastering, boarding, painting and decorating, tiling, carpentry, joinery and basic plumbing. We’ve given them those skills to become either a generalist or to determine if one of those skills is one that they would like to specialise in.

“For senior leavers, our idea is to expose them to construction companies as they may want to go on to a more management pathway, so site management, construction management, and may well re-skill into a profession as a building surveyor or quantity surveyor. So the pathways are open and there are 180 different ways into the construction industry.

“Opening veterans' minds to the potential opportunities available in the construction industry is what we are about. Our future plan is to continue to expand and provide more centres. We are being overwhelmed by applications as we had 1200 applications and we only have 850 places.

“We need construction companies to collaborate with us, so if there is a construction site anywhere in the country that will be running for two to three years I would love to get in touch.

“We are a charity and as a Chief Executive, I’ve discovered that most charities work a pound behind and never a pound in front. If anybody likes what we are doing and wants to help us please go to our website and donate. Donations are the lifeblood of charities.”

Building Heroes has a host of testimonials on its website including a graduate from Building Heroes Nick Thorogood, said: "Having served 23 years in the military and soon to leave I was looking at different career paths but was uncertain what I wanted to do. I attended the Engineer course in order to gain experience and potentially work in the Engineer environment.

"The course consisted of Metal work fabrication including welding and use of other engineering equipment. The course was extremely well organised and run by experienced instructors that were always on hand to assist the students and ensure we got as much as we could from the course. With an extremely relaxing environment, I and all students managed to complete all assessments required as well as fabricate a few things for ourselves, which was interesting and fun.

"Building Heroes also helped myself and others in tailoring our CV to the environment me maybe wishing to work in. Live job vacancies were also sent to aid in future employment, this was extremely helpful.

"Overall, I found the Building Heroes Engineering Course extremely enjoyable and would highly recommend it."

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If you would like to learn more about Building Heroes, please visit: https://www.buildingheroes.org.uk/