We’re incredibly grateful to The Trades Widows Fund Charity for awarding MCR Pathways a generous £5,000 donation.
This vital funding enables us to pilot our award-winning, relationship-based mentoring programme in the wider Aberdeen community, taking support beyond schools and directly into trusted, familiar local spaces where young people need us most.
Helping to play a crucial role, funding will help us to reach more young people who are struggling to engage with education, or who might otherwise miss out on the guidance, encouragement, and belief a mentor can provide to finding a path towards positive post-school destinations.
We will test a flexible, community-based approach to mentoring. Working with key local partners, including the local authority, Police Scotland and alternative education providers, we’ll identify young people who would benefit most from one-to-one mentoring support.
Mentors will meet young people in safe, accessible and familiar locations. This will help build trust and ensure support is offered in the right place at the right time, as an innovative way to reduce barriers and ensure no young person is left behind because of how or where they feel comfortable in accessing support.
We’re proud to pilot this approach in Aberdeen, where demand is growing and our local partnerships are strong. What we learn from this project will help shape our future delivery and could support the development of community-based mentoring in more areas.
Mhairi Middleton, Senior Fundraising Officer at MCR Pathways, shared: “We are sincerely grateful to The Trades Widows Fund Charity for their generous donation. Their support will allow us to extend our vital mentoring services beyond the school gates and into the wider Aberdeen community, meaning more young people will receive the guidance and support they need to thrive.”
So far this year, there have been 109 mentored relationships in Aberdeen, totalling 1,797 mentoring hours. The demand is still growing, and more mentors are urgently needed to meet the needs of local young people who are waiting for someone to believe in them.
If you feel inspired to help, there are ways you can get involved:
Find out more about becoming a volunteer mentor here: mcrpathways.org/become-a-mentor, or if you’d like to make a donation, visit this link: www.goodhub.com/go/mcr-pathways.
