2023 Apprenticeship Awards

Ceri is using the skills she gained during her Apprenticeship in Management (Level 3) to start her own company which seeks to address environmental concerns, sustainability and the cost-of-living crisis.

Following a long period of illness, Ceri has built partnerships with strategic organisations and companies including trades union, the Learning & Work institute, the Good Things Foundation, Tesco and 2 Sisters Food company.

She uses these partnerships to create innovative solutions, including Growing Food at Work, a project with UNISON and public sector employers across Wales, enabling people to learn whilst growing food and enhancing the biodiversity of the grounds of their workplaces. Ceri also plants a native species for every learner she enrols.

UNISON Cymru Wales says ‘Growing Food at Work’ gives workers the skills and confidence to grow food, thereby reducing carbon emissions and helping with the cost of living.

David, known as Daf, is an extraordinary man. Following a huge brain haemorrhage in November 2000, doctors gave him no hope of recovery and asked his wife to consider donating his organs.

However, she refused to give up and he awoke from a coma a few weeks later. Due to the brain damage, Daf had to learn how to speak, eat and walk again and it took him 15 years to recover enough to find a job.

Wanting to repay the health board that saved his life, he secured a backroom role in the Covid Testing Centre at Alltwen Hospital, Tremadog at the start of the pandemic.

Having gained qualifications, including the Diploma in Management Level 3, Daf now has a full-time job in the IT department at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and has been a medic for Caernarfon Rugby Club for three years.

Stephanie is no stranger to awards. She’s a member of the team that undertakes in-depth servicing of Hawk TK2 aircraft for Babcock at RAF Valley, Anglesey.

Selected in Babcock’s first Aeronautical Engineering Apprenticeship group at RAF Valley in 2016, she won an ovation award for creativity. Working with two other engineers, she found a way of replacing an incorrectly fitted bolt without having to remove the engine, which was previously required.

Stephanie was also awarded a Local Networking Prize for Engineering Excellence by the Institute of Engineering and Technology and recently added a Safety at Work award for identifying a fault in a brake parachute lock mechanism.

Highly motivated, she consistently delivers quality work and constantly seeks to improve accepted ways of doing things.

Stephanie has completed a Foundation Apprenticeship in Aeronautical Engineering and an Apprenticeship in Management (Level 3) and has represented Babcock at STEM and career events.