Central City News: Truant's new life; HIGHGATE.Byline: By Poppy Brady A FORMER truant has now scooped a youth mentoring Youth mentoring is the process of matching caring, concerned adults with young people who may be at risk. The adult is usually unrelated and works as a volunteer through a community, school or church based social service program. award and hopes to become a teacher. Javed Hussain, aged 15, who is studying for his GCSEs at St Alban's School, in Highgate, is among 90 young people who have been rewarded for their successful mentoring of younger children at the Valued Youth Programme and 4Ps (Primary Pupils' Partner Project) celebrations and awards day at Birmingham Council House. The mentoring programmes, launched by Sparkbrook-based educational charity Second City Second Chance, have now been taken up by other schools across the city and nationally. Javed (pictured) signed up to the Valued Youth Programme two years ago at his school and worked with Year Six pupils from Percy Shurmer Percy Lionel Edward Shurmer (1888 - 29 May 1959) was a British Labour politician and postal worker. In the 1945 general election, he won the Birmingham Sparkbrook constituency from the Conservative Member of Parliament, Leo Amery. Primary School, Balsall Heath Balsall Heath is a working class, inner-city area of Birmingham, England. It is home to a diverse cultural mix including Afro-Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Irish and English, and the home of the Balti Triangle, a collection of Asian Balti restaurants and sweet centres. . Javed, from Tyseley, said: "Before then I had serious behaviour problems. I didn't get on with anyone at school and sometimes I wouldn't go. I got into fights and didn't pay attention to anyone. "I wasn't sure about the programme at first, but I wanted to give it a chance because it would help younger children. Within two days, I started liking it. I saw that there were people who wanted to listen to what I had to say. I helped two of the children I worked with to move up a grade. "Without this programme I'm sure I would still be getting into trouble." The lad who used to bunk off Verb 1. bunk off - play truant from work or school; "The boy often plays hooky" play hooky jargon, lingo, patois, argot, vernacular, slang, cant - a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves); "they don't speak our lingo" school now aims to be a teacher. |
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