London

Mentors are given full training prior to being matched and then spend about 5 hours a month with their mentee, helping them to feel more at home in the UK. This might mean helping to write a CV, visiting a museum or art gallery, practising English or explaining the peculiarities of British humour.

The types of thing we do together have ranged from discussing current affairs so my mentee can practise and improve his English, to having a bite to eat in a traditional Congolese restaurant’ a mentor on the Time Together scheme.

Time Together has been running in London since November 2002. Hundreds of refugees from all over the capital have been matched with a mentor since then.

The project in London is based at TimeBank and the Mentoring Coordinator is Meriem Omer. She says, ‘Being a refugee myself, I can see the enormous benefits that Time Together has on the mentees who take part. Supporting people who are going through such a difficult time in their life can be challenging but it’s also really rewarding when they come back and say how happy they are with their mentors and how different things are now they have someone to talk to and help them.’

There has been a great response to the project in London with mentors coming from all different walks of life and all showing commitment and dedication to the mentoring relationship. We are particularly keen to hear from you at the moment if you have experience of teaching English, however this is not a requirement.