I meet so many teenagers who’ve got no hope, so many kids who say my life’s not worth it or I’m really scared about the future. Too many teenagers whose happiness depends on what other people think about them.

What is the Be the Change Hastings Direct Leicester Programme

Carlo Missirian – Co founder, Be the Change & humanutopia

This collaboration through be the change and Hastings Direct is a perfect opportunity for us to really engage young people and adults in a way that’s very difficult to do inside of school.

Gary Peters – Founder and CEO lovelocaljobs.com and co-founder of Be the Change

Our hope connectively for today is that other corporates, SMEs and businesses across the local area in partnership with the local authorities and schools really embrace what we’re doing here.

Gary Hoffman – Group CEO Hastings Direct

I’ve been amazed with what I’ve seen already this morning on Be the Change. It’s fantastic for Hastings we’re making a difference in the communities that we serve.

Andrea Gray – Operations director Hastings Direct

For us it’s about building employability skills, getting in touch with or community and really building a base for our people that we already employ to get out there in the community.

Graham Moore

So today we’re going to help you develop a real range of employability skills, but we’re going to have a laugh doing it.

Chetan Patel Hastings direct Business Mentor

I’ve done youth mentoring before I know what the value of the work is and what people can get out of it. However, this completely threw out of jugular because I didn’t know what to expect.

To me the results speak for themselves because they were all very shy, didn’t have a lot to say at the beginning of the day. And I couldn’t believe that at the end of the day that they got up and said what they said.

Laurienne Buhinja – Hastings Direct Business Mentor

I’ve had a long journey it’s been a long journey from fourteen to where I am today. It hasn’t been straight forward…

I’m reflecting and thinking wow, I’ve actually come a long way and you can too…

Krishan Mistry – Hasting direct Business Mentor

It’s given me an insight into obviously how kids have going on in school nowadays but gain on relating it to myself as well.

Rather than just going straight into a job interview it’s about how you feel confident with yourself.

Jay Wootten – Community Liaison Hastings Direct

I’m absolutely bowled over again to see how well students interact through this, how well the business volunteers have done what they do and really great to hear the students say to you “thanks for what you do, thanks for caring.” And that just makes it complete.

Mohamed – Teacher, Madani Roys School

It has been really inspiring to see our young kids getting up and speaking to other people.

Every single student is talking to each other, I think they are more confident they’re happier to be honest.

Gary Hoffman – Group CEO Hastings Direct

From the stories I’ve heard they don’t surprise me but the always shock me, you know these things go on they’re. Nearly everyone has a story about how that transformed…

Student opinions

It feels really different from anything I’ve done before. We do talk about career sometimes but it doesn’t feel like you’re actually learning about what you’re really going to need. This day has been really helpful because you’ve learned people’s stories and what they’ve been through

The business volunteers have been really nice. They help me see that even if you have a rough start then you can still get into a better position in life.

Working with the business volunteers today was good because they were really kind of understand everything you have to say. They’ve built my confidence and made me feel better about myself and happier.

It really just gives them focus in life

The most powerful part of today has been getting to know everybody and getting to know myself.

It made me feel more confident about the future.

Today I decided to actively change because I’m like the kind of guy that’s like distracting in lessons.

I think it helped me just to believe in myself a little more and it gave me a bit of hope of what I’m going to do in the future.