Jobless young people in Chippenham have been given a voice through a film launched last week called NEET Voices.

It is the latest effort by Wiltshire Council to try to connect with people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET).

William Wyldbore-Smith, who became Wiltshire’s High Sheriff in March, was at the film launch at Chippenham Town Hall last Thursday.

Mary Cullen, part of the Wiltshire Voices project, said: “The area boards were set up as a way to involve local people in discussion and decision making, but members identified they weren’t hearing from some people in the community, whose issues the area boards weren’t aware of.

“We needed to find ways to reach them.”

In response, 12 of the county’s 18 area boards set about making films to highlight people such as stroke survivors, the blind, those with learning disabilities, the elderly and travellers.

Mrs Cullen said: “It will make for a more holistic training, to see the person rather than just the medical condition.”

She said the army wives video had already fulfilled its aim of encouraging them to come along and take part in area board meetings.

“Also, 800 of them have set up a Facebook group and they’re running parent toddler groups,” she said.

Jay Lowe, 21, of Compton Bassett, stars in the latest film, launched in Chippenham Town Hall last Wednesday. Mr Lowe has not had a job in the five years since he left school.

He said: “Every time I walk into the job centre or say that I am unemployed it just makes me feel really small, sort of scum of the earth.”

For every job centre vacancy in Wiltshire, there are 2.6 claimants of jobseekers’ allowance, Wiltshire Council said last year. Being NEET is twice as common among young disabled people as non-disabled, according to Disability Rights UK.

Hannah Holden, 21, also in the film, went to a special needs school in Radstock and has given years to volunteering at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Dorothy House in Corsham and Sainsbury’s in Melksham. But she is still unemployed, having lost the housekeeping job she had in Monkton Park, Chippenham. Miss Holden, from Kington Langley, said: “People don’t realise how much I can do.”

The films were made with funds from the Performance Reward Grant from the Government.