200 young people from London and Birmingham were welcomed at special events hosted by Starbucks partners dedicated to inspiring and educating youth about future workplace opportunities.

The events came as Starbucks marked its third ‘Open Starbucks’ community day as part of Global Month of Service, which was held in partnership with The Challenge who run Starbucks award-winning Opportunity Youth programme in the UK, HeadStart with Starbucks.

The London event was the biggest open Starbucks youth employability event to date with 200,16-24-year olds from schools across London invited to join interactive workshops and ‘skills networking’ sessions led by Starbucks volunteers. There was a chance for the visitors to create a new Frappuccino recipe, design a new store or learn about the role of IT in running the day to day business! Starbucks partners shared their career experience to inspire and equip young people with confidence and skills to achieve their potential in the world of work.

Starbucks is a founding partner of HeadStart, a programme set up by The Challenge and the Mayor of London in 2013 in coalition with other corporate and charity partners, which recently celebrated 100,000 hours of volunteering. HeadStart is an award-winning programme which supports young people to gain critical character traits and skills for work and life through volunteering. It also connects them with their local community to create a more integrated society.