Volunteer spotlight: Blaise’s story

Our wonderful mentor Blaise has just completed her mentoring journey with her mentee Surafiel after supporting him both on our Risers and Breadwinners Programmes since 2021. Read all about her experience below!

“Sura has worked incredibly hard with Breadwinners since I became his mentor in 2021. During the Risers Programme, we had a lot of fun selling bread together at weekend markets in London and because it was lockdown with no cafes or museums (or anything!) open, we spent our mentoring sessions exploring and trying to keep warm chatting and walking around beautiful parks! We also used our mentoring sessions to set goals, practice English, create Sura's first CV, and apply for new opportunities.

Sura proved himself to be such a fantastic Riser that last summer, he was then employed as Market Stall Manager at Maltby Street Market through the Breadwinners Programme. Whenever I visited him there, I have always been so impressed by his confidence and skills in communicating with customers, never missing a chance to tell them all about the charity.

Sura tells me his favourite part about being Market Stall Manager was the opportunity to work with the young people on the Risers Programme and he's loved seeing them grow and being a part of their journey.

He’s always smiling, always positive, always on time, unbelievably resilient, and always inspiring me and the Breadwinners team with his hard work and achievements. It's been a total honour to be his mentor and I'm sure this opportunity has struck up a lifelong friendship, for which I feel very lucky.

Recently, we have been doing some job searching. He is on the look out for some part time work to fit in around his college studies. It is certain that his next employer will be very very lucky to have him join their team!

We celebrated completing the programme with eating Ethiopian food together and also enjoyed the wonderful celebrations last week for the graduation of an inspiring group of young people who have been working hard learning new skills and building their confidence during their training with Breadwinners.

After a long and tough winter where life hasn’t been easy in the UK, and at a time when the politics and narrative around refugees and people seeking asylum continue to be extremely challenging, Sura and the work of Breadwinners is an inspiration to us all.”

Written by Blaise, a proud Breadwinners Mentor who is also working as Civil Servant and Life Coach: https://www.blaiseboulton.com/.

Would you like to become a mentor like Blaise? We are currently looking for volunteers for our next cohort of Risers in London and Brighton starting late April for 8 consecutive weeks! Group interviews are taking place in two weeks so it’s not too late to apply! Click on the hyperlinks for your city of choice to sign up! We look forward to hearing from you! 🧡