TEENAGERS struggling to cope with the pressures of the modern world will be offered an unusual alternative at a new city youth centre: running their own soap company.

The Apprentice-style challenge will be just one of the opportunities on offer at the new RAW Potential hub in Blackbird Leys.

Day trips out to unlikely places and talks from Oxford professors are also planned to inspire youngsters who struggle with mental health problems and ever-growing social pressures.

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The project is a new branch of Blackbird Leys social enterprise RAW, which runs a workshop where people with learning disabilities, mental health problems or from a disadvantaged background make things out of recycled wood.

Watch the project in brief:

Oxford Mail:

Managing director Rick Mower said: “We are going to help young people in the community engage in really positive activities, raise their self-esteem and address some of the issues that are facing young people today."

As well as challenging youngsters to start their own soap company to teach them about the world of business, Mr Mower said: “We are also going to take them to places they might not have gone: you’ll be amazed at how many people from areas like Blackbird Leys haven’t been to places like the Ashmolean Museum, it’s weird – they don’t think it’s for them, but we want to show them that it is for them.

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"We’ll also have speakers in, like Army veterans and professors just to get them to talk to other people and make them think, 'oh, you know what, there is a big life out there'.”

The aim of the new hub is to continue the work already offered to young people in Oxford.

Mr Mower said: “What you’ll find with young people is that the pressures on them are so vast at the moment that there is a huge increase in mental health issues, so we work with the CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) service in Oxford already.”

Oxford Mail:

He added: “Equally kids or vulnerable people getting involved in gangs, or those who just haven’t got many choices in life, we want to just get them in here and show them that there really is something great about life, and that they can be amazing.

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The RAW Potential hub will all be run from a new building on Dunnocks Way, and building started this weekend with help from construction firm StuartBarr using materials donated by Blachford in Headington and Jewson in Wheatley.

The hub is due to open next month.