WORK on a pioneering directory has given adult students a better chance of finding a job.

Ten students have been compiling a data base of opportunities for people with special needs to learn, train and get a job in the Hambleton area. And now the students, who themselves all have special needs, have been presented with certificates for achievement in recognition of their efforts at Northallerton College.

The £25,000 emPower project was funded for two years by BT and will now be continued under the college's lifelong learning budget. Lifelong learning coordinator Sandra McDougal said: "The scheme has been such a great success that we just had to continue it.

"It has given the students much more confidence and helped steer them towards independence and, we hope, employment."

She said some of the more physically disabled students had specially adapted equipment, including special keyboards and touch-sensitive screens.

The directory will be available to disabled people across Yorkshire and will also have its own websites.

Certificates were presented by college principal Jennifer Slater to Shelly Clark, James Brown, Elizabeth Cowles, Sarah Barclay, Stephen Jacques, Michael Norwood, Katie Bevin, Karen Bell, Raymond Atkinson and Ian Neville.