Give Tottenham a Chance (GTAC) is a mentoring project which started in 2012 based at St Ann’s church in South Tottenham. GTAC was designed to help young people aged 18-24 get in to work and give working professionals living in Haringeythe opportunity to‘give back’ to the community through volunteering. They were asked tomentor these young adultswho wereunemployed or under employed in and around the Tottenham area and help themfind work opportunities using their social capital.
22 year old, Francesca was ambitious and motivated to achieve but struggled to focus on which career path she wanted to pursue. Her GTAC mentor Claudette Wilson, who works as an administrator for the NHS, saw great potential in Francesca and felt she needed someone to encourage her and give her confidence. With Claudette’s support Francesca landed two apprenticeships but felt her place was in banking and wanted to beginbuilding her career with Barclays.
Francesca said: "It’s so nice to know that there are people in the world still willing to help you achieve your dreams and better yourself. GTAC helped me by assigning one of the most loveliest, kind hearted mentors to me, who helped me realise I can do anything I put my mind to and taught me how to believe in myself."
Since the launch of the partnership in January 2014 mentee, Petar Ivanov, secured a place at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge to study a degree in Social Science and Public Services, and Tanim Ahmed is now working for Sainsbury’s.
Vernetta Lynch, Project Manager at Give Tottenham a Chance said: “We are grateful to the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London for giving us this opportunity to impact on the lives of these young people who we are passionate about helping to achieve great things and become assetsto this community.”
Jane O’Neill Interim Principal and Chief Executive said: “Partnering our Prince’s Trust course with Give Tottenham a Chance has led to extremely positive outcomes for many local young people and the College looks forward to continuing our work with GTAC.”
