Event poster for Share the LOVE 2021
On the 14th of February 2021, We invited professionals from a diverse range of career backgrounds to share the love with our young people. From the UK’s youngest architect, to members of the production team for Gangs of London and Top Boy, our volunteers talked about their careers, journey and experiences; inspiring our young people to take action, and pursue their career aspirations.
First we were joined by our guest speaker Councillor Anntoinnette Bramble Deputy Mayor of our home borough Hackney. Cllr Bramble offered these words of wisdom for our young people “you cannot always determine the amount of doors that close to you, but you can determine how many door you push open”. Then the speed-mentoring began, 10 minutes for our young people to draw as much career advice as possible out of our volunteer professionals. This was followed by one-to-one conversations with a professional of our young people’s choosing to ask questions, create an action plan and take away an invaluable golden nugget of advice for success. Finally, we were joined by Football legend Emile Heskey who proved especially popular with our promising your footballers. Since retiring from football Emile Heskey has set up the charity Player 4 Player who kindly sponsored this event. We also want to give thanks to our other sponsors; The Fisheries, the co-working space that The Mentoring Lab call home and Caramel Rock an educational charity providing training and job opportunities to young people. Caramel Rock focus on empowering and supporting young people to access varied training and opportunities within the Fashion industry!
We ended the day sharing the experiences feedback of our young people, expert youth mentors and volunteer professionals alike. Our young people felt inspired, understanding the ways they could access and actively take next steps towards their desired career, aided by the mentee action plan they created in their one-to-one session. Yet, most importantly, they felt motivated, instilled with the confidence that they too have the potential to achieve sustainable and successful careers like our volunteer professionals. Meanwhile, For The Mentoring Lab team and our volunteer professionals hearing the optimism, excitement and motivation our young people were expressing was both rewarding and heart-warming. We left the event with our hearts full of love, feeling privileged that we had been able to provide an opportunity that may make a real-difference to a young person’s life and future – We are beyond excited to see where our young people’s career journey takes them, and we have every faith they can achieve anything they put their drive to.
Finally, on behalf of The Mentoring Lab we would like to express our gratitude to everyone that made this event possible. Player4Player, The Fisheries and Caramel Rock for generously sponsoring our event; our amazing team of expert youth mentors for their continued work changing the lives and futures our young people; Cllr Anntoinette Bramble and Emile Heskey for inspiring our young people; our talented professionals who volunteered and provided their invaluable career guidance; and finally our you people, who committed to achieving a sustainable and successful careers and remain at the heart of everything we do here at The Mentoring Lab. Thank you everyone, without your help the amazing work we do would not be possible. If you feel you can help The Mentoring Lab continue our work please consider donating to our fundraiser here: https://localgiving.org/charity/thementoringlab/
