In January 2014, Marist Youth Care (MYC) launched a pop up nail bar at Federation Square called ‘Pink Lightning’, which was a wild success and helped to create community awareness of our endeavour.

The aim of the project is to provide transitional employment, training and support to young women, and to start reversing the high percentage of youth unemployment that is a reality in Melbourne and throughout Australia.

MYC is a non-profit organisation that provides services to over 3000 at risk young people and their families each year. Since August 2012, MYC has been operating a Skills Development Centre in Brunswick providing pre-employment training and employment opportunities for young people facing barriers to the employment market.

The Pink Lightning project supports young women to:

• Enroll in a Certificate III in Beauty Services
• Complete a two week preliminary program around confidence, new experiences, manicures and social skills
• Gain valuable transitional work experience as casual mobile manicurists throughout the Melbourne CBD, whilst being supported one hundred percent by MYC staff, who organise the work opportunities
• Find full-time employment at the program completion using their new skills
• Take ownership of business decisions and their future

The pink picture so far…

As it stands we are supporting eight young women through the Pink Lightning project and are hoping to continue the good work with up to forty young women each year. We have increased our community engagement through visiting aged care facilities, community centres, corporate offices and government departments.

Giving young people the chance to work, build their social capital and develop friendships is a reflection of a healthy society, and creates a generation that is strong, skilled and successful in a way that is meaningful to them and enables them to participate in the future of a cultural, generous and intelligent Australia.

We are extremely excited about the success of the Pink Lightning Project so far and hope to encourage as many businesses as possible to support our young women and our local Melbourne community.

Engaging in this project will allow organisations and individuals to provide pathways to employment for these young women and create achievable, real social change in the city they live in while bathed in the pink glow of Pink Lightning nail artists.