Youth Alive Trust has just received a donation of $5,000 towards their mentoring programme from an accounting firm with a difference. Social Currency is a new business that gives 10% of all their sales to programmes for at-risk kiwi kids. Clients can chose which programme they want to support when they engage in accounting, business advisory or social impact measurement/reporting.

Lisa Mead is their director, lives locally and is such an inspiration. Check out her story produced by Braveheart ChCh recently HERE.

Youth Alive Trust is celebrating its 30th Birthday this year and have recently employed a mentoring coordinator, to increase and formalise the mentor and mentee relationships and provide a deeper level of support. The donation from Social Currency has helped launch this programme, and we are now looking for other new funders or donors to support this initiative. Here’s one story of a mentor and mentee relationship that is making a difference…

Finn and Paddy have been meeting for about a year, and get together each week for chats; sometimes they go to the gym, sometimes they skate, sometimes do a community project and recently Finn has started helping Paddy with some of the children’s programmes he runs at Youth Alive Trust. Finn doesn’t have a Dad at home or any other male role models. He left mainstream school in Year 10 and now does a correspondence course. He freely admits that he looks to his mentor for guidance, “Paddy’s easy to talk to. He helps me to sort out the stuff that’s going around in my head. He’s one of the good guys”.

Paddy had some very tough experiences as a teenager himself, and that is one of the reasons he’s so passionate about supporting young people like Finn, “I was being hit at home, and I never had the courage to tell anyone. It’s difficult to see what’s happening in the head of a teenager, but I’m in a privileged role of walking alongside someone who I have built trust with, and talks to me in confidence. Now I get to watch Finn work with other boys and be a role model to them too – I love it”.