This year Keltbray are celebrating World Children’s Day on 20 November with the exciting re-launch of the bespoke, award-winning storybook, ‘When I Grow Up’. The book is written by Rich Smith, Pre-Construction Director of Highways at Keltbray, to inspire as many bright young minds as possible and encourage them to consider a career in construction. Paired with interactive workshops, the book is aimed at primary school aged children and promotes STEM as an exciting and engaging career. Of the book, Rich says:

Safer Highways becomes the first organisation to formally announce its public support of the When I Grow Up project which is expected to be embraced by the industry. When I Grow Up seeks to promote the construction industry to children who will hopefully consider a career in the industry in later life. The partnership will see Faithful+Gould distribute copies of When I Grow Up to their own staff as well as the local communities they work in. We also welcome collaboration and sharing of the storybook with other contractors, subcontractors and supply chain partners. The book is completely devoid of any branding, so that others can easily use it to deliver their own social value and engage local communities. The storybook can be used as needed, and resources created to target a wider range of children. We invite all of Keltbray, as well as our delivery partners, local schools, charities and community groups to use the book and help maximise its reach.These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them. The nature and the desirability of adulthood is not a straightforward matter in an age in which it is quite possible to spin out childhood to the end of one’s days. Is this good for society? Is it good for the individual? These are non-trivial questions and the answer has to be, as in so many matters: it depends. I feel Sarner is right to believe that there is such a being as a mature adult with a well-preserved and nourishing inner child, rare as this ideal may be. But her book suggests that as a society we are bad at producing these – and that there are too many stranded unhappily in the outreaches of childhood, unable to find any new and sustaining ground. Wisely, this young hero realizes that the answer to "what will you be when you grow up?" may not be simple. Learning from his grandfather, who held many jobs throughout his life, the boy suggests one outlandish occupation after another, not ruling out the possibility of trying each in turn. Forced to quit school because he was Jewish, a 20-year-old from a wealthy family wrote of organizing a Zionist group, celebrating Bar Mitzvah, and his global writing campaign to emigrate to the U.S.

The Letter-Writer — a glimpse into the Yid­dish press, as well as the Kafkaesque ordeal of a 20-year-old Jew fight­ing Amer­i­can legal restric­tions against immi­gra­tion It’s a privilege to be able to re-launch the book to the wider industry in honour of World Children’s Day, so that we can reach a new audience and inspire the next generation to consider a career in construction. Through education, we can do our part in creating a better future for our young people and ensure they have the necessary tools to carve out a meaningful career. We want When I Grow Up to be used across our industry in support of social value commitments. The book is free of any company branding so that everyone, no matter where they work can get involved!” Rich Smith, author of When I Grow Up. It would have been nice to see more of the types of careers kids want to be when they grow up, since a lot of kids tend to say they want to be firefighters or teachers or gymnasts, for example. These are all also the thoughts of children, so even a slight focus on each of these ideas, from the same perspective of being a child and how childhood injects more fun into careers, would have been nice. However, the premise of 'When I Grow Up' will resonate with readers young and old, increasing nostalgia for one's youth and capturing the minds of those still in that age range. The partnership will launch with all attendees at the upcoming Highways Heroes awards receiving a free copy of the When I Grow Up book. The sold out awards evening on 7th December 2022 at JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London provides an excellent platform for showcasing the social value initiative to key individuals from across the industry. One night while getting ready for bed a little boy starts to wonder what will life be like when he grows up. He could be a painter, a musician, a mountain climber, a mayor…

These (mostly) anonymous stories are translated and illustrated from per­son­al essays sub­mit­ted to con­tests spon­sored by the Yid­dish schol­ar­ly and cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tion, YIVO, in the 1930s. For us this partnership is mutually beneficial, supporting our recruitment strategy by helping to inspire and motivate our future workforce, thus ensuring our next generation of talent will enable us to deliver on our purpose of engineering a better future for our planet and its people.” Readers will recognize themselves in these stories—some of the content is very specific to time, place, and culture, but much of it is universal to the young person’s experience—hopes and dreams for the future, struggles with school and parents, crushes, attempts to forge an identity, friendships made and broken. It has a naturally flowing rhyme and meter, and the illustrations are excellent. I was a little disappointed that one of his potential jobs is "master debater." While "Weird Al" has always been generally family-friendly, he isn't exactly squeaky-clean. However, that's the only beef I take with this book and I consider it a pretty minor gripe.