HAPPY NEW YEAR

Claire Barrett

A message from our Chair, Jania Geoghegan

Dear Friends

Welcome to the 2020 Madrinha Trust Annual Report.

What a difference a year makes! At the start of this academic year no one could have foreseen the position in which we now all find ourselves. All of our students have been in lockdown and we have swiftly had to adjust to the changing times.

As always, our Madrinha mentees have proved their resilience and have managed to continue their studies, mainly on line, and the support of our mentors has been unflinching.

At the time of writing, new vaccines have been trialled successfully, but how the distribution will be undertaken globally is still unclear.

It is apparent that many of the students due to graduate in 2020 will have their graduations delayed until 2021, and we have taken the tough decision not to take on any new students until next year. This means we can use our resources to help our current cohort complete their studies.

We continue to place great emphasis on helping our students to think beyond graduation, and the new Career Build Team is working closely with mentees and mentors to broaden access to programmes and initiatives which will give our students the necessary skills to find meaningful employment in an increasingly challenged global economy.

If there has been a silver lining to the pandemic, it has been the uplifting experience of getting to know our Madrinha family members much better via Zoom. Cluster calls, where we have managed to gather mentees, mentors and leaders from each of our individual charity partners have proved a great morale booster and it has been a joy putting faces and voices to names.

Fortunately our WhatsApp groups were already well established and these have proved very active forums for sharing all kinds of news, academic information, online study courses and moral support.

As always, I should like to express my personal thanks to my wonderfully engaged board of trustees and to our administrator, S-J Heany who oils the wheels of the machine to keep it running.

My thanks also to our charity partners and especially to our enthusiastic cohort of mentors who are the ones really transforming lives.

I wish all of you reading this health and security in the months ahead - we are grateful for your support.

Jania Geoghegan.

Founder and Chair.