Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and RMJM receive prime minister’s backing for Architecture for Everyone campaign

Gordon Brown has lent his support to the Architecture for Everyone campaign, which seeks to encourage people from ethnically-diverse backgrounds to consider architecture as a career.

The £1m campaign was set up by the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and architecture firm RMJM earlier this year.

It will see a series of workshops, led by RMJM, rolled out in some of the nation’s most deprived inner cities in 2009. Six of the most promising participants will be sent to Harvard University to study for eight weeks.

In a statement, Brown said: “I am pleased to support Architecture for Everyone, a new nationwide campaign demonstrating how third-sector organisations and the business community can work in partnership to address the needs of young people in urban areas, improve their life chances and raise their aspirations. Giving young people the opportunity to contribute to designing and shaping their community is important, as it enables them to make their mark and take responsibility for their environment.”

The scheme has been set up in memory of Stephen Lawrence, the 18-year-old black teenager murdered in 1993. It was his ambition to become an architect.