Mentoring Young People to Design Future London with Reach Out 2 Kids
Design Future London’s 2023 challenge invited young people aged 5-24 to reimagine a greener, safer Croydon – using Minecraft! Matter’s founder, Christina, mentored a group of 11-14 year-olds through charity Reach Out 2 Kids, and shares some of the amazing results they achieved together.
Encouraging the next generation of engineers
“I’m passionate about mentoring people in engineering and I’m also passionate about local design, so I was excited when the charity Reach Out 2 Kids asked me to get involved in Design Future London 2023 as a volunteer. The Design Future London challenge is organised by the Mayor of London, and promotes learning and development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Reach Out 2 Kids is a small, London-based charity helping young people from diverse and low-income backgrounds to believe in themselves, achieve despite the odds and succeed in their career goals. It’s a cause that I really connect with, and I’m honoured to have been asked to work with them. They placed me at a school near Elephant and Castle, with a group of 15 students aged 13-15. My objective was to inspire, support and bring out the best in these young people through their competition entries.
Given the current UK shortage in engineers, I also wanted to encourage these young people to consider a career in engineering, showing them that engineers can also be female, from any ethnic background, and with English as a second language.”
Meeting the challenges of working together
“Together with their school teacher, Lisa, and another volunteer, we planned a series of workshops to help these young people develop their competition entries. I worked closely with Lisa to understand the differing needs of the students, and the variety of challenges they face, including difficulty with speech and communication.
Learning how to work with these young people was really challenging. Some of the young people didn’t speak at all, to anybody, at any time, which made it difficult to encourage communication during group work. I couldn’t engage them in a conversation, like I normally would with the people I mentor. I had to find new ways to communicate.
We worked with the students every other week, over a three-month period. I started by simply observing them in the workshop, to see how they interacted, and slowly Lisa introduced me to the students. After a few workshops, they started to open up and became more comfortable asking me questions.”
Creating opportunities for students to develop skills
“We organised a dry run of the presentation of competition entries, to give the young people a chance to practise speaking in front of people and presenting their models. We managed to find a large conference room at The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the young people presented to us as if they were presenting to the Mayor of London. The audience included students, teachers, volunteers and one person from the GLA.
I was invited to be a judge and gave feedback to each of the entries on how they could improve. We all had fun and it was an educational day out for the students, who got to visit the amazing building we used as a venue.
After the dry run, our students submitted their entries to Design Future London. Shortlisted entries were published online as part of a public vote which received a total of more than 4,000 votes. It was a great opportunity for students to showcase their work to their peers, family and community.
From the five London schools that Reach Out 2 Kids supported, five of our entries were shortlisted. We were invited to an awards ceremony at City Hall attended by about 200 people, along with all the other finalists. I’m delighted to say that two of our entries went on to win.”
Experiencing the students’ achievements and creations
“We saw such a transformation in the young people we worked with – it was amazing. One of the winning entries supported by Reach Out 2 Kids was presented by a group of two girls. One of the girls had a condition that meant she didn’t speak, but she would press a button for the presentation. The other girl spoke for their group, but she was very, very shy.
But on the day of the award ceremony, the girl who had never spoken throughout the project took off her mask and did the presentation. Her teachers and classmates were completely taken aback. They had never heard her speak before, and never imagined that she would be transformed by this experience.
The other winning entry supported by Reach Out 2 Kids had an exceptionally detailed and beautiful model. I remember it from our dry run event – it was so creative. The group had taken these simple, everyday materials like lollipop sticks and made them into a miniature park with little trees and plants. It was remarkably impressive. At the ceremony, all of the students who won awards said that they wanted to go on and do something in the construction industry.
As part of the awards ceremony, the Mayor of London organised speed networking sessions during the breaks. All industry professionals wore a badge showing their profession, and the students could ask us questions. I had a lot of students asking what it’s like to be a structural engineer and I was happy to share my experience.
The winning entries in the 11-15 category won prizes including cash awards of £250 donated by Derwent London for schools to buy design and creative equipment, as well as book vouchers donated by DP9 and work experience with Landsec and Grosvenor. Details of their designs were published on the Microsoft website.”
“Nothing could have prepared us for the fact that we came away with three prizes today. The fact that the students had never taken part in anything like this before and managed to walk with that recognition is testimony to them, and the support that they had from their teachers and their volunteer mentors, as well as the guidance of the leadership team in this ROK pilot project. What is evident to us is that when you instil confidence and give students the tools to succeed, they soar.”
Denise Stephenson, CEO and founder of Reach Out 2 Kids
Join the 2024 challenge!
“Matter is working with Reach Out 2 Kids again on Design Future London 2024. This time, I’m taking a more major role, briefing all schools and volunteers about the challenge. We’re currently looking for professionals to be volunteers, so if you’re interested in making a real impact on the lives of young people, and on the future of design and engineering in London, I’d love to hear from you.”
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