Wrexham students win national mentoring award

Young people from Wrexham gaining confidence and qualifications via a mentoring course have received national recognition for all their sterling work.

For almost two years, students from St Christopher’s School have been working with social enterprise, Empower – Be The Change and the successful partnership has been acknowledged at the Business Wales Mentoring Awards.

The students and Empower’s Founder, Jo Clay were all nominated in the Celebrating Diversity category and Wrexham’s Assembly Member, Lesley Griffiths recently visited St Christopher’s School to present the respective awards, along with Victoria Massey, Business Wales’ Mentoring Agent.

Students from St Christopher’s School have been working with Empower – Be The Change since October 2016, gaining confidence and qualifications through the ‘Empowerment’ course. After successfully achieving an ILM Level 2 Qualification and Level 3 Sports Leaders Qualification, as well as completing over 150 hours of community-based volunteering, 4 students advanced to Empower’s mentor programme, which started in September 2017.

Emily, Scott, Hannah and Courtney attended 6 sessions and were tasked with using their knowledge and skills to help support their peers through the Sports Leaders qualifications. The 4 students went above and beyond and demonstrated a high degree of commitment, enthusiasm and motivation to not only complete the courses but to support their peers to do the same.

After presenting the awards to Emily, Scott, Hannah and Courtney, Lesley Griffiths AM said: “Having visited St Christopher’s School on a number of occasions to meet with the students, it has always been clear not just how hard they’ve worked but also how much they’ve enjoyed themselves in the process.”

“The volunteering and mentoring opportunities created by Empower – Be The Change have helped the students gain new skills and grow in confidence and self-belief. Winning a Business Wales Mentoring Award is recognition of all their hard work. It is fully deserved and I congratulate all involved.”

Glyn Jones, Assistant Head at St Christopher’s School said: “I am absolutely delighted that our students have won this award from Business Wales. All their hard work and efforts developing our Sports Leaders Level 2 students has proved so successful. Our thanks to Jo Clay for tutoring them to develop their mentoring skills.”

The success of the project has led Empower – Be The Change to roll out the programme to many groups across North Wales. To date the enterprise has empowered over 150 people through our programmes and have ambitious plans to empower over 1000 people by 2022.

Top pic: Students from St Christopher’s School and Jo Clay from Empower – Be The Change presented with their awards by Wrexham AM Lesley Griffiths and Business Wales Mentoring Agent, Victoria Massey.