This youth mentoring project was organised by the Safer Communities Initiative (SCI), run by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), in partnership with JP Morgan, a leading global financial services firm.

It brought together young people from different backgrounds living in Tower Hamlets and helped them establish a local community project through mentoring support. It aimed to build links between young people from different faiths and backgrounds, and benefit the local community.

The project was run by the community partnership section at JP Morgan, with support from the SCI team. It involved 26 year 10 students from five schools in the borough. The young people met at JP Morgan's offices every other week. As their community project, they decided to organise a concert to raise money for charity. In addition, the young people received life skills sessions, on subjects such as interviewing and presentations and shadowed someone in JP Morgan.

Although initially the young people associated mainly with those from their own school, they soon began mixing with each other and finding out about each other's cultural backgrounds. The project successfully improved relationships between a diverse group of young people, without diversity, race or faith being explicitly on the agenda.

Project type

• Youth groups

Region

• London