Hear it from our National Head Mentor
17 January 2019 | All News
Imran lives in Birmingham and has many years experience as a self-employed tradesman. He first got involved with VIY in February 2013 after seeing an advert calling out for volunteers on trade recommendation site Rated People. He initially agreed to volunteer for one day on a local project, but he quickly discovered he really enjoyed passing on his skills to young people. Since then he has been involved in more than 375 VIY projects in the West Midlands and across the UK, personally helping over 6,000 young people gain a City & Guilds Entry Level qualification.
Imran is now our National Head Mentor and, as well as mentoring young people on projects, he also helps scope and assess new VIY projects, and brief and train new mentors. He also undertakes outreach work in schools and colleges, delivering assembly talks and running classroom workshop sessions.
Imran makes the point: “It’s great to see how young people develop their skills whilst working on a VIY project. Many of them come to VIY thinking that that they’re not very good at learning, but once involved, they realise they can pick up new vocational skills very quickly, and that finding a job doing something you really enjoy is possible.”
