Openreach and The Girls’ Network have combined their services to offer a mentor scheme that is aimed at girls from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Once mentors are selected the process will begin with 20 girls aged 14-19 being mentored with the hope that they gain a better understanding of the working world and to increase their confidence.
Lasting 10 months the programme involves face-to-face meetups, workshops and access to opportunities they never would have got to experience before.
They hope that it lifts all aspects of the participants’ mindset towards the working world, given they come from disadvantaged communities where it such opportunitis may be limited.
Olivia Abbasi, head of the advisory board and ambassador at The Girls’ Network, said: “You just have the most, like to have a professional woman who can understand you, can help you and help you progress in things that you won’t necessarily get help from elsewhere.
“Although schools and things are great with kinds of whatever you’ve helped with, they’re not necessarily personalised for students.”
Olivia had her own mentor when she was 16 before becoming an ambassador herself at the age of 18.
She said: “It’s basically to help any girls who are in a position where naturally they might fall into not having as many opportunities, so for me being from Liverpool if I literally went anywhere in London there is a chance I could just be judged based off the accent that I have.
“It’s to give girls opportunities that they would never have previously.”
Olivia described how sometimes schools cannot cater to helping so much with career aspects and the ability to network like the mentoring programme can. She describes how beneficial these networks and connections are.
The programme shows a real progression for young girls looking at all of their options and exploring what they want to do with people there ready to help with these opportunities.
There a many different workshops that enable this to happen. For example, voice training, media, midwifery and finance workshops to help young girls explore and always at an accessible time for students.
Olivia also highlighted how the events take place in all different regions and not just online as the girls benefit more from this. Click below to listen.
