B's story

“I got involved with Mentoring Plus because of a lot of things going on at school, and my dad sadly passed away. I know adults think when teenagers are going through that much pain, they need help with their decisions. But I felt scared, because I didn’t know what would happen.

When Mentoring Plus came they helped me a lot. They don’t do it for the money, they do it for charity. They inspire young people to grow from what’s happening, and help them live their life from now on, so people like me don’t spend all their lives worrying about what’s happened.

My mentor is very good with me because I used to be embarrassed to do a lot of things. I was embarrassed to run in front of people. I was embarrassed to talk about my family. Now I feel a lot more capable of trying stuff.

I feel so alive when I’m with my mentor, because she gets me to try stuff I’ve never done before, and when I do I feel I’ve been missing out on a lot.

I’ve also done a lot of group activities at Mentoring Plus. My favourites were quad-biking, man-hunt, assault course, paintball and clay pigeon shooting.

Over the time mentoring I’ve got a lot more confidence and self-esteem, and I’m not embarrassed any more. With my mentor I started going to a boxing group and I go every week now. And my mentor is always there to inspire me whenever I’m down.

It’s important that it keeps going as a charity because there’s going to be a lot of other children with problems like me, and we need Mentoring Plus to keep our confidence up and to help with whatever’s wrong in our life.”