You may remember back in May we announced the Sandwell Social Entrepreneurs Award, a funding scheme to help social entrepreneurs in the borough with grants of up to £5,000 plus one-to-one support.

Three months later we are delighted to announce that one of this year’s successful applicants is 23 year old Rohim Mohammed from West Bromwich.

Rohim has a strong track record of supporting people in the community. Over the last ten years he has worked with 822 organisations in 12 countries and mentored around 5000 people. He ran his own successful enterprise hub on West Bromwich High Street and was invited to deliver a speech about supporting young social entrepreneurs at a conference in Portugal in July.

Most recently he volunteered on the Do It For Real programme, a project run by UnLtd which enables young people to start, grow and build social action projects.

Long before his application, Rohim had already been talking to Sandwell Council about how to develop the borough’s social enterprise agenda. After application forms were submitted, shortlisted candidates were invited for a pitching session, after which Rohim’s multifaceted business skills hub ‘The Hatchery’  by Extra Thinking Capacity was eventually chosen. The £5,000 that he was awarded will cover the cost of office space plus the equipment, resources and promotional materials needed to get the enterprise hub off the ground.

Rohim is “delighted to be spearheading and supporting the growth and development of new and existing social enterprises in Sandwell”, and cannot wait to get started.

We’ll be bringing you more news of ‘The Hatchery’ at its official launch. To find out about how Think Sandwell could help support your social enterprise, go to our Business Services pages.