Christmas 2023
THANKING ALL OUR MENTORS, TRUSTEES, CHARITY PARTNERS AND FRIENDS WHO CAME TO THE MADRINHA TRUST CHRISTMAS EVENT on MONDAY 11 DEC 2023
We had a wonderful gathering of mentors, trustees, partner charity representatives and friends of Madrinha at our Christmas Event on Monday 11 December at the May Fair Hotel, London.
Jania Geoghegan gave a warm welcome, thanking everyone for all their support in 2023. She emphasised the importance of the mentoring relationship enjoyed by the Madrinha scholars and the positive impact that it is having on their future. Throughout the year there were many clear examples of how this mentoring relationship gives energy and vitality to all that our scholars do. This is truly reflected in the comments given by the Alumni in the 2023 Alumni Supplement.
The hope is that our Alumni Society will be bringing this mentoring experience to the scholars in 2024, as buddy mentors.
Madrinha Trust welcomed three guest speakers:
First to speak was Robin Woodhead, KHULA’s Chairman, who shared an excellent short video on the Teach the Nation SA / KHULA/ Madrinha Fellowship Programme’s progress in 2023.
He also gave an up-date on the wonderful Coca Cola Funding of tertiary education grants for 10 students over the next four years starting January 2024. A major reason for winning this support was that KHULA was able to reference the success of the Madrinha Trust scholarship funding over the last 8 years !
This is a perfect example of true collaboration between partner charities. We sincerely wish KHULA the very best with this great new opportunity.
Our second guest speaker was the chairman of FQMS, Khaled Dawas who gave us an up-date on what is happening on the ground to the Palestinian students and doctors in Gaza and the West Bank who are currently trapped by the war on Gaza. Sadly FQMS have lost several of their students, doctors, professors and all the Medical Colleges in Gaza have been raised to the ground.
If you wish to donate to their emergency fund please do follow this link.
Finally, we come to our third guest speaker Mac Chiromo who was introduced to Madrinha through our Trustee Vanessa Kyte. Mac heads up Diversity and Inclusion at Apple. She is a Zimbabwean entrepreneurial change-maker, a status quo shaker and an opportunity creator.
Madrinha had the pleasure of meeting Mac a few times on Zoom before our event and Jania knew that Mac was going to be hugely inspirational as the final guest speaker at our very special Christmas event.
Mac Chiromo, Jania Geoghegan and Vanessa Kyte
Mac’s personal journey from “Zim” to London as an ambitious young female Lawyer with a desire to change the world is a very powerful story, clearly illustrated during Jania’s “in conversation with Mac” with a Q&A format which led to some very funny moments and some very insightful questions from our audience.
Please enjoy the videos and photos by going to this Vimeo link..
Jania Geoghegan in conversation with our guest speaker Mac Chiromo
MENTEES BECOME SCHOLARS
One of the new changes introduced by our Trustees is that we feel Mentees should all be called Madrinha Scholars and carry this badge of success through to their CVs and LinkedIn Profiles.
In 2024 we encourage all our Alumni and Scholars to upload their “scholar badge” onto both their LinkedIn profiles and CVs too.
MADRINHA REACHES OVER 100 ALUMNI!
We are super excited to announce that Madrinha Trust will have funded over 100 Alumni. To celebrate this milestone we have published a special Alumni supplement with our 2023 Annual Report.
We are of course overjoyed that all Madrinha Trust Alumni are in full-time employment. This is a great achievement all round and special thanks are due to their mentors who have fully supported them to reach their goals.
Please enjoy reading the Annual Report and special celebratory 100+ Alumni Supplement
2024 NEW SCHOLARS
We are still finalising our new cohort but we can confirm here our exciting new Vietnamese partnership with Saigon Children with whom we are now proudly supporting 5 new scholars, included in our Annual Report.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
A very special thank you to D’Amour, our wonderful Rwandan Alumni, who helps S-J run all the social media items throughout the year. As well as being a pro-active contributor to all the WhatsApp Groups including visits to Tanzania on his holiday to organise a group meet up and Career Workshop ! D’Amour adds many useful LinkedIn stories to the Madrinha Trust LinkedIn Page as well as encouraging our scholars and alumni to share their Insta stories … THANK YOU
THANKING OUR VOLUNTEER MENTORS
We are always delighted to welcome new mentors and our next mentor meet up is on :
WED 7 FEB @6.30pm
Come along to the Royal Court Theatre Bar (downstairs)
next to Sloane Square Tube, London SW3.
FINALLY..
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2024
Thanking everyone for all their support throughout the year.
All the very best
Jania and the Madrinha Team