Smart Students in the fast lane
Posted: 9th May 2012
Twelve local businesswomen have taken on the challenge of becoming a mentor to a teenage girl.
Each woman committed to spend a year working, encouraging and motivating a 15-year-old girl at the launch of the 2010 Can Do Women project this week.
One of those who signed up is Laura Henderson, a trainee solicitor at Woodfines Solicitors in Milton Keynes. She said: “I decided to volunteer because I wish I’d had a mentor when I was at school as it would have been wonderful to have had someone to bounce issues off. The project is really worthwhile and I know that I will get just as much out of it as the student will.”
The project, which is run by The Milton Keynes Academy to help raise aspirations of teenage girls, is now in its third year.
Corporate fitness trainer Ruth Crawford became a mentor last year and has found the role very rewarding: “I enjoy spending time with the girls and giving them an opportunity to chat over things. I am able to encourage them in different ways and talk to them about their choices.”
At the launch event organiser Miss Gockelen told the women that their help in encouraging tomorrow’s business women was hugely important.
The women and girls got to know each other by taking part in a competition to create crazy prom dresses out of recycled materials.
