“I help them with anything they need help with,” she says. “Offering advice for things they might be dealing with in their personal lives, helping them get to appointments or filling out application forms for jobs. Basically, just being that extra support person for them.”
“We also go on lots of lunches together. We’ve done go-karting and pottery painting…we have a lot of fun.”
For Ayesha, her lived experience helps her connect with the young people she mentors in ways that feel authentic and meaningful. “Talking to someone who has lived experience of what you’re going through, someone who understands, is super important. It builds a special connection. I’m able to give real advice when it comes to certain things like drugs and alcohol or sexual and mental health. One of the young people I work with really appreciates having those conversations with me because she hasn’t been able to have them with anyone else in her life.”
While the mentoring relationship is designed to support young people, Ayesha says the experience has also transformed her own confidence.
“I’m very grateful for these experiences because they’ve helped me a lot with my confidence as well,” she reflects.
“I’ve always been that person who’s needed help and support all my life. So now to be on the other side of that dynamic was something I was not used to. But since working with the two young people and helping them, I’ve built up that confidence to be able to confidently speak and offer them support and advice.”
Her message to the young people she works with is one she wishes she had heard earlier in life.
“One of my biggest fears when I was younger was that I couldn’t do anything worthwhile. I would look at other people and their jobs and lives and it was just a hard ‘no’ in my head. I believed a life like that could never happen for me, and that held me back further.”
“What I want most for the young people I work with is for them to know that they can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want. They are smart, they are important, and it doesn’t matter where they’ve been – they can do whatever they want in this world, and they have people who want to support them to do it.”
Recently, Ayesha was recognised for her contribution with the program’s Mentor of the Year award.
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Ayesha. “I was shocked but super happy.”
“I’ve lived my whole life believing things like that don’t happen to me. It meant a lot.”
When asked about Ayesha’s impact, the program’s Senior Project Officer Kiandra noted: “‘Ayesha continues to blow me away in so many ways. She has turned her own care experience into a superpower, using it to guide and mentor our young people.”
“Ayesha walks alongside them, believing in them when, at times, they sometimes feel they have no one else to turn to.”
“Ayesha gives me hope for a better future for our young people.”
