The BGIP Programme
The Land Collective are proud to launch our pilot programme offering for teenage girls, Black Girls in Property (BGIP). BGIP will enable a group of Year 11 students of Black heritage to take the next step in life with confidence and a new network of inspiring professionals who are doing great things across the property industry.
Please see the below video to see what our 2023 got up to.
We aim to empower, educate, elevate and encourage. This summer programme will deliver a range of activities to provide the girls in attendance with the practical skills necessary to step into success, both personally and professionally, in the property industry.
The programme will focus on connecting the girls with a diverse range of professionals at top employers and businesses across the industry such as property developers, housing associations, estate agencies, regeneration consultancies, property investment firms and more. The part-time days will feature motivating career talks and advice sessions from women speakers, a series of skills-building workshops, site visits, interactive panel discussions and networking with our partner firms.
Why Black Girls?
Widening access to opportunities is at the heart of what we do at The Land Collective CIC. As a youth-focused organisation that has diversity and inclusivity as core values, having tailored programmes are particularly important to measure outcomes.
Property is a very male-dominated, traditional sector. While strong efforts have been made to change that, we still have quite a long way to go. When you introduce ethnicity and class into the equation; we have even further to go.
The aim of this programme is to provide equality of opportunity and improve access at an earlier stage. This is why we have decided to focus this programme on Black teenage girls who have just completed Year 11 from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
If you are interested in some of our other programmes, please feel free to view our website.
About The Land Collective CIC
The Land Collective is an award-winning, youth-focused organisation that encourages engagement in the property and built environment sector through showcasing career opportunities, providing educational resources about the sector, delivering employability programmes and placing diverse young talent into early career opportunities such as apprenticeships, internships, work placements and graduate schemes.
The organisation was founded by Sarah Hayford in 2017, a former commercial property surveyor. Frustrated with the lack of diversity in the sector across most areas, she set out to start her own organisation that supported young people from diverse backgrounds into the sector.
Since its inception, The Land Collective has successfully run a range of employability programmes for young people which include a global virtual internship programme in the areas of commercial property, construction and planning and development as well as an ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Programme, essay writing competitions and more; all supported by top employers across the industry.