What a fun day I had yesterday mentoring 57 young people on the NCS  programme in Reading, UK.

I was invited by Holly Glasson (Assistant Programme Manager) from NCS:The Challenge to work with 3 groups of students in the 16-17 year age group regarding stress and anxiety management and to talk about the work that I do in local secondary schools.

There were also two other presenters, covering CV writing and also on identifying and using your strengths.

Holly also asked me to mentor one of the groups regarding their charity business project before pitching it to four different business people in a ‘Dragons Den’ scenario later this week.

Their project was to create 60 shoe boxes containing a variety of items for young people to be shipped out to Zimbabwe. Their charity was ‘Creating Better Futures’ for children affected with AIDS.

During the week the team had developed their knowledge around:

• Risk assessments
• SMART goal setting
• SWOT analysis
• Budget/costing
• Fundraising
• Organisation skills
• Time management
• Presentation skills

I was impressed that the students were passionate, motivated and determined in their tasks whilst also having fun, learning new skills and making new friendships.

I would fully recommend NCS to any teenager wanting to meet new people, learn about charity fundraising and develop business and organisation skills for their future career.

The programme is well structured and organised and there are plenty of younger mentors involved in assisting the programme manager, most of them having previously been on the programme themselves.

This is a fantastic opportunity for young people to gain invaluable skills that they might not get exposure to in school, and to take forward into their future careers

More information about NCS can be found by clicking here or you can contact Holly Glasson.

I am so glad to have been part of the NCS students journey and wish them well for their presentation pitch and final week.