Lee-Ann’s Story: North Ayrshire’s Super Volunteer

Lee-Ann works part-time for a national charity, working as a pensions secretary. She also volunteers her time and skills with various other projects as well as mentoring a young person at Auchenharvie Academy in North Ayrshire.

Lee-Ann heard about MCR Pathways through social media and was immediately interested in the programme. She says:

“The main reasons that I chose to become a volunteer mentor with MCR Pathways was to be able to give back to society. For me it is about using my own life experiences and what I have learned throughout my life to provide assistance to a young person who needs it. “

Lee-Ann found the process of becoming a mentor really exciting! Stephanie, the Pathways Coordinator for Auchenharvie Academy, is so passionate and enthusiastic that Lee-Ann felt really inspired to hear how much the programme supports young people. She couldn’t wait to be a part of it. She attended the training session and shares:

“The training we received was very detailed and this was backed up by handbooks. However, I’m not one for reading lots of brochures, I prefer to be there in the moment which is why I really enjoyed the interactive training session.”

After a short wait, she was matched with her young person and they’ve already met a couple of times. The relationship is quite new, however Lee-Ann says:

“It’s going really good! My young person is a ray of sunshine, a chatterbox and I look forward to seeing them each week. My mentee has strong aspirations for the future and I look forward to chatting through these together and seeing where they’ll progress onto after school. Despite it being such a short period of time, I feel like we are getting to know each other because we are both pretty open people and have shared things about ourselves already.”

Lee-Ann is thoroughly enjoying the mentoring process as she feels it takes her away from her own stresses and strains in life. It is an hour a week where it’s about looking at life through the eyes of a young person. She describes how it takes her back to my own youth at times. She says:

“My mentee bounces up to reception where we meet and seems excited to see me. I can’t wait to see how the relationship grows and I already know that once my young person leaves school, I want to be able to begin the process again.”

Even from the early stages just now, Lee-Ann  already feels the reward. She is looking forward to seeing the relationship with her mentee develop long term. On mentoring, Lee-Ann would say to others:

“Go for it! The MCR Pathways programme is fantastic and gives hope to those who maybe don’t always have it… I believe there is a real lack of this type of thing across Ayrshire and I hope to see MCR Pathways spread not only in North Ayrshire, but into Ayrshire as a whole.”

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