Junior Mentors interrogate bankers

Last week a group of young people from the ReachOut Junior Mentors went to visit Macquarie Bank. The trip offered a fantastic opportunity for our Year 10 and Year 11 students to find out what it would be like to work in a global investment bank.

We started the day with a business brunch and a presentation about investment banking and the different careers on offer in an organisation like Macquarie. Macquarie employs more than 13,900 people in 28 countries so there are a huge number of roles available beyond trading, including Human Resources, graphic design and sales. We learnt that in every role within the bank it is essential to be well organised and pro-active. Safe to say that all the young people who came to Macquarie bright and early in the middle of their half-term fulfil these requirements!

After brunch, the young people split up into groups and were given the opportunity to ask the Macquarie volunteers questions about what they do. After half an hour of discussion time, a young person from each group presented their findings to the group. The young people found out how the Macquarie employees had chosen their career paths and the steps they had taken to get to their current roles. Although, a few groups ventured slightly off-topic with their questions (‘Are you married?’, ‘What’s your wife called?’, ‘Do you want kids?’), leaving a few Macquarie volunteers blushing by the end of the presentations!

We finished the day with a tour of the glamorous Macquarie offices including the vast trading floor and the very impressive ‘floating’ red stair case.

The day was organised by the Macquarie Group Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Macquarie Group. Thank you to Rachel Engel and Richard King for putting on a great event for our Junior Mentors.

The ReachOut Challenge

This Wednesday, 6 teams made up of our corporate sponsors and associates ran a gauntlet of skill, teamwork, and endurance at Challenge 4 Change. The 6 teams were each joined by two junior mentors from our fantastic Junior Mentor projects, and tackled challenges such as the wall vault, the chariot race, and the human scales all in the name of the ReachOut challenge.

The challenge was a great way for some of the corporates to get an idea of what ReachOut does and to meet some of the young people that benefit from one-to-one mentoring on a weekly basis. We have been covered by several media publications in the last week as many of you will have seen. The articles report on the positive effect our mentoring programmes have on a young person's academic achievement. The ReachOut Challenge was a great way for the corporate participants to find out how they can be a part of that movement.

After the morning session of activities, team Arrow Global were crowned champions of the ReachOut Challenge 2014. All of our valued participants gave it their all and made sure the day was a complete success, so a very heartfelt thank you must go out to Jones Lang Laselle, Royal Bank of Scotland, Simply Health, Zurich, BNY Mellon, and the winners Arrow Global.

Team Arrow Global with Alex Williams MBE from City in the Community and ReachOut chief exec Xavier Bosch

In the afternoon session, it was all about personal achievement and stepping out of comfort zones. Vertiginous leaps of faith, and white knuckled high wire assault courses were the order of the day.... oh and a 30 foot totem pole called Elvis (coined so because of its propensity to wobble when climbed upon).

A special thank you must also go out to the very generous Metronet uk, who kindly funded the event, to Alex Williams from Manchester City in the Community, and finally to our hosts Challenge 4 Change. The mentality that Challenge 4 Change encourage from all participants is right in line with what we value at ReachOut: Stick with it even if its difficult, set yourself the challenge and you might surprise yourself! For those of you have never attended, what are you waiting for! Its great place to test yourself in a safe environment. Take the challenge and push yourself! 

Luke Shelbourn

Manchester

The Chariot Race... and by chariot we mean big blue mat.

Team BNY Mellon ready for action!

Team Simply Health

Team RBS 

Peace!

Team Jones Lang Laselle

The leap of faith

The high wire with Elvis giving it a wobble in the background.

Team Zurich

Mentoring Works

Last night we launched 2013 ReachOut Impact Report at the office of one of our partner organisations, Macquarie Bank in London.

ReachOut is a mentoring charity that has been changing the lives of young people from disadvantaged communities in London for ten years now, and Macquarie staff have been helping since 2007. Dedicated mentors from a variety organisations provide one-to-one support to help young people achieve their future goals.

At the event Macquarie employee Jamie Broom, who volunteers with ReachOut and ran the London Marathon for the charity last April, welcomed everyone and shared a few insights into the Macquarie Group Foundation.

The Foundation, has contributed more than $US200 million to over 2,500 community organisations since its inception, and last year alone Macquarie's staff also provided more than 38,000 hours of support to not-for-profit organisations. It has funded the ReachOut Junior Mentors programme for the last two years and will continue to do so into 2015.

Every Wednesday evening Jamie and a few colleagues catch a cab to the ReachOut Academy programme in Hackney where they provide one-to-one academic support to young people. Jamie has been volunteering for 3 years now and really enjoyed his experience and hopes that more colleagues will be getting involved soon!

Our Chief Executive, Xavier Bosch, then shared some of the impact made by ReachOut in the past year: 

Academic results from our young people are much higher than national averages: 10% at KS2 level (10 year olds) and 40% at GCSE, and also much higher than the averages in the areas where we operate (Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Camden and Manchester). 

However he also pointed out that ReachOut is not only an academic organisation but that they view academic achievement as a proxy for achieving character growth. Xavier said: 

“There is a limit to how good you can be at maths, or football, but there is no limit to how good a person you can be.” 

ReachOut’s effectiveness in this area was evidenced through countless numbers of personal stories where young people in their own words have told that had it not been for ReachOut they could have easily ended up in jail, like some of their friends or relatives, that thanks to the mentoring they have achieved much more than they ever thought they could.

Following Xavier a drama student from Queen Mary University of London, Charlie Murrell-Edwards, spoke about her experience as a mentor on the ReachOut Club programme and how she watched on child go from being too shy to even join in with the games in the first session to eventually beat-boxing while everyone tried to play musical statues with no music! Charlie said:

“it’s great to feel as though I’m making some kind of difference in the local community. I definitely feel more a part of east London thanks to ReachOut.”

Finally, we heard from a ReachOut mentee called Glory.  Glory takes part in the Junior Mentors programme that the Macquarie Group Foundation funds, where the young people work one-to-one and in groups with mentors on academic, teamwork and leadership skills. He said “When I started I just thought - urgh what’s this? But my mentor was really friendly and supported me with my coursework as well as having fun. ReachOut helped me to decide that I want to work in media and so I’m going to do media studies as one of my A-levels.” Glory is also planning to apply to university in a couple of years.

The evening was rounded off with a wonderful 30 second video and a fantastic song about ReachOut created by 10 and 14 year old mentees respectively.  These were part of a competition by ReachOut asking “What does ReachOut mean to you?” Please take a couple of minutes to support the charity by viewing the shortlisted entries and voting for your favourite here: http://www.reachoutuk.org/competition-shortlist/

If you'd like to read the full Impact Report you can download it here.

The Funding Network

On 29 January, ReachOut took to the stage at the Funding Network Newcomer’s Event to pitch for funding towards the Junior Mentors project, our one-to-one mentoring project for young people, aged 14+.

Suited and booted, our Fundraising Officer, Luke Ounsworth, along with one of our Junior Mentors, Glory Botesse, spoke for six minutes about how important the Junior Mentors project is for disadvantaged young people in Manchester and London.

With almost 1million NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) young people in the UK, it is vitally important that young people have access to extra-curricular character and competence building activities during their compulsory education. These activities stand young people in stronger stead to secure educational or training opportunities when they leave school and it was this message that ran through our pitch.

A Junior Mentors Project in Manchester

The crowd gave a hearty round of applause when we announced the brilliant result that 100% of ReachOut graduates since 2011 were in employment, education or training within six months of finishing their GCSEs and were delighted to hear about the impact of the Junior Mentors project from the brilliant Glory Botesse. His first-hand experience of the project meant that he was able to give the audience a real insight into life as a Junior Mentor and he even got a laugh, helping us to raise a fantastic £6,500! Well done, Glory!

Check out the video of the pitch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLhZvsMVWkM