London Youth Support Trust

Over London Youth Support Trust

London Youth Support Trust (LYST) was established in 2000 with a simple aim: to break down the barriers young entrepreneurs from deprived backgrounds face when starting their own business; these included a lack of affordable workspace, finance, advice and support. We opened an enterprise centre in Deptford in 2001 to house a small number of businesses. We provided them with an affordable business unit over a 2 year period (subsidising their rent). The centre was run by a manager who could provide business advice, mentoring and co-ordinate specialist training.
We continue to offer this model of support and we currently operate from 5 enterprise centres across London.
Today we run centres in Southwark, Haringey and Merton. We have also expanded our model to 4 cities nationwide, helping to establish centres in Merseyside, Telford, Hull and Dundee.