Manchester's Volunteer Thank You Event

Over the last academic year ReachOut Manchester volunteers have clocked more than 4,500 voluntary hours helping us run 19 mentoring programmes, renovate our lovely new office and run trips and excursions to help broaden our young people's horizons. Volunteers are an essential part of the ReachOut family and their dedication to the ReachOut programme means that we're able to keep on changing young people's lives for the better. 

To recognise our volunteers' amazing work we held our annual Manchester Volunteer Thank You Event on Friday 29th April. We had a brilliant turn out on the night with over 60 volunteers, corporate friends and ReachOut supporters coming together to celebrate the year (and check out our new office of course).  

After hearing about some of ReachOut's amazing achievements from our CEO Peter Blackwell, we presented awards to those volunteers and Project Leaders who have gone above and beyond what is required of them in their roles. Each category was highly contested, with it being a very difficult decision to choose the eventual winner. In total, we had 5 categories this year with the following shortlist of mentors and Project Leaders: 

ReachOut Club Mentor of the Year

Emily Clewlow

Alastair Barrie (winner)

Nawal Khalid

Phoebe Connolly

Bremer Kayimbe

Rory Mckeown

Mia Carter

Afsaneh Tayyar

ReachOut Academy Mentor of the Year

Kiernya Grant-Blisset

James Doyle

Pablo Buj Cumbreno (winner)

Ore Agbeja

ReachOut ACE Mentor of the Year

Gabriel Evans Cayley (winner)

Eleanor Weston

ReachOut Project Leader of the Year

Rob Jones

Sam Johnson

Martha Rawlings (winner)

Beth Ryan

Maria Bartolome

Alice Pooley

ReachOut Project of the Year

St Paul's High School Year 7

Our Lady's High School Year 7 (winner)

Our Lady's High School Year 8

St John's Primary School Year 6 (Friday project)

We also presented a very special Outstanding Contribution to ReachOut Award to Sam Johnson. Sam has been involved in ReachOut for over 10 years and received multiple nominations for the Project Leader of the Year. His dedication to his work has been unparalleled and the strong relationships he's been able to form with both mentors and mentees makes all of his projects cohesive and enjoyable. Sam has been a vital part of the ReachOut team in Manchester and he will be greatly missed when he leaves us in May! 

Thank you to everyone who attended the event and made it such a great evening! We're hoping to run lots more social events over the coming year so we hope to see you again soon! 

Jo Tripney
Volunteer Officer

President Obama reaches out to ReachOut

It’s been an exciting week! If you’ve been following our social media channels over the last few days you'll know that ReachOut has been involved in something truly historic.

On Saturday, five ReachOut mentees were invited to attend a Town Hall with the President of the USA, Barack Obama!

Owura Osei-Asibeh, Gavin Alexander, Sabrina Choudhury, Tionne Tulloch-May, and Izzy Cofie (left to right in photo) were on the edge of their seats as Obama discussed key major issues including foreign affairs, racism and gender rights.

The main focus of the speech however, was that young people had to work hard and stay optimistic about solving world issues. The President asked the audience of young adults to “reject pessimism and cynicism” and “take a longer, more optimistic view of history”.

As proponents of good character, we couldn’t agree more. If you mix a positive attitude with staying power and community spirit, then there are no problems too big to tackle.

The whole event was a great experience for our mentees, who were hugely honoured to have been invited to take part:

• “Barack Obama made me understand that you have to do the right thing, not necessarily do things ‘right.’” - Gavin

• “[I'm going to] be more open to change. Accept others' opinions and be more understanding.” - Sabrina

• “As well as continuing to work with kids as a tutor, I am going to seek more volunteering opportunities to help wherever I can.” - Tionne

We are proud and inspired that our young people are choosing to create positive change on the world and people around them. This is what ReachOut is all about.

London's Volunteer Thank You Event

The annual ReachOut Thank You Event gives us the opportunity to show our appreciation to all of our volunteers for the time, effort and commitment that they put into working with our young people. We know that mentoring with ReachOut isn’t easy and it’s important to us that we have a formal opportunity to say thank you for the energy, determination and resilience we see from our mentors every year!

Thursday 17^th March 2016 saw what was described by ReachOut’s CEO, Peter Blackwell, as London’s best Thank You Event yet’! There was a great turn out on the night with over 120 mentors, mentees and ReachOut supporters  coming together to celebrate our fantastic volunteers efforts over the last 7 months and beyond.

Peter Blackwell kicked off the event with a speech outlining some of ReachOut accomplishments this year. Becoming a Hackney Half Marathon official partner, hosting a fantastic event at Bloomberg with US Ambassador to the UK Matthew Barzun and having Ali Aden, ReachOut’s youth ambassador, speak at the Character Symposium alongside Nicky Morgan to mention a few.

Next up we heard from two ReachOut mentees currently taking part in our new post 16 programme, Community Leaders. Paul Ngyuen and Sabrina Choudury spoke with great confidence and modesty about their achievements and learnings over the 3 years they have been involved at ReachOut. A tough act to follow!  

We presented many hotly contested awards during the evening including Outstanding Project and Volunteer of the Year for all 3 of our programmes. It was also the second year that we awarded the Inspirational Student award in memory of Kieran Dhaliwal a ReachOut mentor who sadly passed away in October 2014.

The evening was all about our volunteers, so it was fitting that two longstanding ACE mentors and crowd favourites, Sally Shervington and Steve Maplesden shared their experiences of volunteering and the amazing changes they had seen in the young people throughout their time at ReachOut.

It was great to see so many of you at the event and I think all would agree there was a real buzz in the air and a realisation that mentoring with ReachOut makes you part of a family with a shared aim to help our young people be the best they can be. We’re hoping to schedule in lots more social events over the coming 12 months so keep an eye out and hope to see you soon!

A special thank you to Macquarie for hosting the event and to Suhita Kabir (Year 12 mentee) for her great photography skills!   

Manchester’s Lord Mayor Meets ReachOut Mentees

On Thursday 10^th March the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Paul Murphy OBE, paid a visit to the Year 7 and Year 8 ReachOut Academy at Our Lady’s RC High School in Higher Blackley, Manchester.

During his visit, the Lord Mayor got to see our mentees using their staying power and self-control  to make mini parachutes:  an activity designed to test team-working skills. The Lord Mayor chipped in with some sage advice for the groups (he was an aerospace engineer once upon a time don’t you know?)  and chatted to the mentees about their time with ReachOut.

Before he left for the day, he had to answer some tough questions from our mentees. What is it like being the Lord Mayor? What does the Lord Mayor do each day? And is that chain made of real gold? His final words of advice for the group were that the key to success is perseverance, determination and the desire to succeed.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Paul Murphy OBE, for taking the time to visit our project and to chat with our mentees and mentors. 

ReachOut… towards university

One of ReachOut’s key goals is to raise the aspirations of our young people, helping to ensure that every one of them has the chance to reach their full potential.  This term, our year 8's at Our Lady's Catholic High School have been working with their mentors to learn all about university life: from courses and lectures, to societies and independent living.

Last Thursday, the the University of Manchester's widening participation team popped up to see the year 8's and to run an activity about university life in Manchester. The widening participation team's main purpose is to attract talented students to Manchester from all educational backgrounds, making sure the university is rich in both diversity and opportunity.

During the session, the mentees and mentors took part in the Star Student board game, an exciting activity that introduces young people to  key facts about higher education and university life. 

The students acted as human counters moving around a giant game board as each team was challenged to answer a series of questions relating to higher education.   The game was a great opportunity for mentees and mentors to use their staying power to answer some tricky questions, while getting creative with how they answered. Miming, drawing, and spelling out answers were all acceptable ways to progress.

The session finished with a graduation ceremony for the winning team and students enjoyed the chance to try on graduation robes a few years early.  Many thanks to Hannah and Quassim from the Manchester’s widening participation team for an excellent and enjoyable workshop and to Our Lady’s school for hosting the event.