Twelve years ago, Community Housing Cymru set up an Award scheme to recognise housing innovation in memory of a special person - Pat Chown. Pat gave a big part of her life to helping others and spent much of her working life in helping to meet people's housing needs in Wales.
Gwynedd-based horticulture, catering and joinery social enterprise tells us what makes the business a success, and about its plans to grow the organisation further.
Welsh social enterprise takes top prize at national awards
Date: 31.03.2011
Vi-Ability - a unique Welsh business initiative focused on training young people to run football clubs sustainably - has been crowned 'social enterprise start-up of the year' at the prestigious national Social Enterprise Awards.
Vi-Ability's founder Kelly Davies - a former Welsh international and ex-Arsenal player - picked up the trophy last night at a ceremony in London's 02 Indigo arena.
The evening was part of the Social Enterprise Coalition's major social enterprise conference Voice 11.
Vi-ability won the Welsh heats of the awards earlier this month and last night fought off competition from three top social enterprises around the UK.
A startled Kelly was presented with her award by Labour leader Ed Milliband, who heaped praise on her and said he wanted to stay in touch with the 'fantastic' enterprise.
"This is a massive achievement for us," said Kelly, who only started Vi-Ability 18 months ago. I knew we were unique, but I wasn't prepared to win. I was told the judges decision was unanimous."
She paid tribute to Colwyn Bay Football Club for letting her enterprise pilot its business model with them. "They have gone from breaking even into being a profit making club. We had English teams who wanted to trial the model, but it was important for me to start at home in Wales. Colywn Bay was really in-line with our community approach and proved great to work with," added Kelly.
The social entrepreneur, who worked for a year on her own, but has recently taken on 15 staff at her rapidly expanding enterprise, said she is motivated by giving young people skills and helping football clubs become sustainable.
She is also keen to see more women taking leading roles in football and is pleased to be representing females in the sport.
The business is now set on expanding across the UK and into Europe.
CEO of the Welsh Social Enterprise Coalition, John Bennett, said: "This is a brilliant achievement for social enterprise in Wales. Kelly really demonstrates the sort of talent coming through and we wish Vi-Ability further great successes in the future. She is a highly determined, passionate social entrepreneur and I'm so pleased that she's flying the flag for Wales."
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