Stuart Hooper, former Captain of Bath Rugby, took part in the first of six group mentoring session for young people to launch West of England Mentoring (WEM) at the offices of wealth management company Novia Financial in Bath in January 2018.
Novia Financial are providing business mentoring to local secondary school Beechen Cliff this term. 9 members of staff, including CEO Bill Vasilieff, who represent different parts of the business are giving up their time to group mentor 15 students from Beechen Cliff. Over 6 sessions with Novia Financial, students will explore careers, employability and routes into work, and then put together their own post-16 personal plan.
CEO of Novia Financial Bill Vasilieff was keen to support business mentoring in the city. He said “The mentoring programme is a fantastic opportunity to support WEM and the children at our local Bath Schools. We have been thrilled by the uptake and the response as well as the positive feedback has been phenomenal. We are always keen to give back to the local community and look forward to our upcoming programme of mentoring events.”
WEM is a consortium of Mentoring Plus in Bath and Bristol-based mentoring projects Ablaze and Babbasa, supported by business network Bath Bridge, delivering schools business mentoring across B&NES, Bristol, South Glos and North Somerset. The project is part of a national business mentoring programme part-funded by the Careers & Enterprise Company, part of the Dept for Education.